Two Aurors & A Bookworm
by stormsandsins
Summary: Five years after parting to pursue their choice careers, three best friends reunite. Two Aurors have a hole all over one of their most recent cases. A bookworm will help fill it with answers. On the surface, all seems smooth, but the War has changed them.
1. The Noble Friends

**Prologue: The Noble Friends the Former Weasel, the Former Boy-Who-Lived and the Former In-House Miss Know-It-All**

It wasn't often that Hermione was able to actually feel veritable sunrays, feel them truly soaking her skin. It had been weeks, probably months, since the last time she had been able to get out in the sunlight instead of bathing in the shadows and the nightfall, usually well past ten o'clock when everyone had long gone home and to bed. And yet she would stay behind, oftentimes spending the night in the library searching and re-searching until her mind turned to mush or she fell asleep, face plastered into a paragraph when she woke up the next morning. Sometimes with ink smudged on her nose or her cheek.

Dr Hermione Granger was co-Head Researcher in a rather big Healing firm in Oxford. The fact that she was now enjoying a slurpee on the outside terrace of Diagon Alley's seasonably 'in' ice cream shoppe was nowhere near amusing or fun right now: propped in front of her were dozens of dusty old books that smelt of century-old parchment paper. Thankfully the owner of the new Rosenbaurf Gramarye Public Libraries already knew her name by rote and had overlooked the seven extra books she had carried to the front desk for temporary loan. She only needed them to quickly find some information on the medicinal properties of a rare plant anyway; surely the ancient books carried information on it, or at least some hints to make her research just that bit easier.

Technically speaking, Hermione had drawn a blank when her superior had assigned her the unknown affliction that was eating away at new-borns' magical abilities, and disorganising their DNA in a most dangerous way: worse than rendering them Squibs, this virus spread a gangrene through the insides of the infants, and within weeks the babes were but a matter of the past. So far she had hit a wall: this was so novel that not one person in her department – Magical Disease Remedials, to precise – had heard about it. So she had come to London, to the best and greatest new wizarding public library in Britain, which was located right here in Diagon Alley where Flourish and Blotts had once flourished.

Surveying her surroundings with a slightly disinterested eye, Hermione sucked at her colourful straw, drawing out the Elixir of Bee-Buzz. Grinning lazily to herself, she welcomed the warm buzzing in her ears like a breath of youth. It seemed like a lifetime ago that she had last penetrated Gambol & Japes, or any other amusing shoppe for that matter. Suddenly she felt so old. At twenty-eight…

Hermione's once long wild curls now rested gracefully on the top of her head in short boyish curls underneath a large chocolate witch's hat. Her petite button nose and heart-shaped lips had remained the same, of course, as had her plain coffee eyes, lined with thick brown eyelashes that tangled and clotted together unmercifully.

Through the years and especially during her last year at Hogwarts, her thin and rather linear curves had filled out quite generously. Somehow, in her mind, her self-confidence had been given quite the boost right then and there, knowing that she was a woman in every sense of the term. Oh, she still could not boast that she was alarmingly attractive, but filling out had surely been a plus in the social relations area for the always-shy Hermione Jane Granger.

Grossing herself back into her reading materials, Hermione quieted her already overrunning mind and slowly set her glass back onto the table, choosing another book arbitrarily. Running paragraph over paragraph of magimedical text in her mind, she mentally groaned.

This is apparently heading nowhere… but surely… ah… She ran her thumb over the words: 'Particles of negative magic dust imprinted in the infant's very genes… virus feeds on primal magic… unknown dark curse cast on mother… the womb has healing and shielding properties, however they exclude nonmagical accidents such as falling and death of muggle arms and natural causes i.e. impromptu heart attack… if unprotected can become infectious to family members…' This looks like one very big lead, Granger.

Hermione's eyes scanned the name of the disease. Hereditary Cold Child Virus, 1348. Somewhere it seems to coincide with the muggle Black Plague years. Perhaps the wizarding world was hit similarly, but with this magic-eating virus. Infants and families alike died. I should have remembered something about this in History of Magic, no?

Hermione nearly fell off her chair, swallowing the mad screech she was about to let out just in time, when two hands suddenly rested on her shoulders and a warm breath stirred her short curls for a moment before the man started to speak just loud enough for her to hear, only a hairbreadth away from her ear.

"Miss Know-It-All, reading a brick? No, I must be seeing visions…"

The sarcasm had never failed to make her smile, or to at least acknowledge him. Grinning to herself, Hermione watched Ron Weasley – but no, it was now Junior Auror Weasley, the weeks-old papers she had picked up on her way out of the research facility had claimed – round the white-painted iron parlour table and set an enormous cup of ice cream in front of himself – she guessed a Knarry Mouth Strawberry ice creamby the colour. It was his favourite back when they all still attended Hogwarts.

Ron was wearing tattered brown robes. He looked much older than the Ron she remembered, but that was only to be expected – when she looked at herself in the mirror, she often cringed at the comments it made to her reflection.

Circles under his eyes, tiny wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and tired, yet illuminated stormy blue eyes. He wore his ginger hair in a shaggy style, and Hermione could discern bristles from a stubbly but rather nice unkempt beard – if that was at all possible – on his chin and cheeks. It only served to remind her that Aurors, even juniors as he was, worked tirelessly and probably took extra shifts as well… she was not the only one riding the boat, after all.

"Great heavens, Ron," she began in a lecturing tone before catching his eye as he stood there uncertainly, ready to walk away if she told him to. "Please, have a seat," she continued in a much lighter tone, feeling like an idiot despite herself. What was she doing? They were far from Hogwarts and she was not about to boss him around anymore. Feeling guilty, she changed the subject. "So how is work lately?"

Ron grinned before lifting his spoon to his mouth and motioning someone over. Hermione turned around but saw no one until, out of nowhere, a shorter raven-haired man appeared by her side and pecked both her cheeks before settling down in an iron chair next to her, a Chocomud ice cream set in front of him.

Hermione was not used to such attention lately.

Ron regarded her with amusement playing behind his eyes. "Well, you know… work is just that: work. Lately someone and their clique has been trying to terrorise the Ministry, but we have been able to contain them… so far."

Harry cut in, rolling his eyes. "From what we've been able to gather, the terrorists are from some part of France."

"Oh," was Hermione's only response.

"Yeah, that's what Ron and I thought." He shrugged aimlessly, then continued in an explaining vein. "The French Ministry of Magic has been the target of many attempts at terrorism in the past five years. Since their ex-minister Jacques Languedor released the new Chart of Human and Non-Human Magical Rights in 2007, things have been rather out of control. There have been scandals left and right, one of them being that one of the Ministry's biggest sponsors was a bloke in Russia going by the name of Duke Vladislaw Vladimiriska."

"Yes, I heard of that story at work," Hermione replied thoughtfully, obviously remembering a whispered conversation she had overheard at work. "Dark Creatures all over Eastern Europe, claiming to have converted to our ways, owned the Ministry, in other words."

Ron nodded gravely. Hermione shuddered at the prospects implied here. "Yes. Terror still reigns in France. Who would have thought, really, eh?" His expression darkened. "Harry and I were sent on mission there quite a few times in the last two years to try to straighten things out. They're desperate."

"That's terrible! I remember Paris, Marseilles and the Côte d'Azure as peaceful, magical places – excuse the pun." She had dreamy eyes then, apparently lost in reminiscences.

Ron winked at her. "Keep your memories intact, Hermione. They're rather shady places now."

Harry sighed, picking up a leather-bound volume from Hermione's pile and glancing at its cover carelessly. "God, I was so naïve when I signed up for Auror Academy. I thought it was all over, the dark times were over and there was nothing to worry about anymore except to re-build over the ruins, you know." He turned the volume over before picking up another one and frowning at the title, puzzled. "Are you a Healer?"

Hermione blinked for a few seconds at the break in his train of thought, then burst out laughing. Of course, it had been so long since they had last seen her. When Harry and Ron had left for their Auror training at the Academy, she had told them she was going to magimedical school. But even then she hadn't known what she wanted to do. So she had dabbed left and right for a while. Magimedical research had pretty much come to her suddenly and she had stuck to it since.

It was the best of both worlds. Healing and researching, two activities she prized in everyday life anyway. So she read about magical medicine all day long and wrote reports to famous Healers, analysed blood samples from all over the United Kingdom, and so on and so forth.

"Not quite." Ron raised a curious eyebrow at her much like Harry right then. Her eyes flickered from one to the other before she realised she would have to elaborate. "I'm a researcher at a Healing firm in Oxford. Perhaps you've heard of it… Auldenberk."

"Sounds German," Ron immediately commented, brows screwed in thought.

Hermione smirked. "My boss is half-German, half-English. He chose the name accordingly, or that's what I've been told anyway. I'm actually here in London for work. I've been studying on a rare and fairly new disease that has been targeting the DNA."

"Wow, you don't hear that everyday," Harry commented dryly as he reclined on his chair. Ron looked uncomfortable.

Hermione sighed, eyeing her Elixir of Bee-Buzz idly. "Oh, don't worry about your health, it only affects infants. Only problem is, it's a disease all right, but no one has ever heard of a gangrene that eats away at the magic in an infant. And it's causing ravages in the north of the country as we speak."

Ron winced as if the disease had personally hit him. "Oi. Well, you know, Harry and I… we won't be of any great help there." He seemed about ready to stand up and take his leave.

Hermione seemed to startle. Had she been blabbing about her boring work? After so many years, couldn't she make pleasant conversation without turning automatically to medical subjects? For heaven's sake, they were her best friends! Harry and Ron were already standing when she blurted out, "No! Do stay. I've been locked in for weeks. A little company will do me good." She smiled genuinely, and a sparkle flared in her eyes again as they sat back down indulgently. "How long exactly has it been, lads? Seven? Eight years?"

Harry leaned forward conspiratorially. Hermione and Ron soon followed suit. The three of them looked like plotting kids just then. She could imagine Ron rubbing his hands together, getting ready to devise a brilliant plan of action. "Far too long," Harry said as seriously as he could manage, having apparently just thought of the same.

Hermione sat back and laughed. A clear, ringing laugh that Harry and Ron had not heard in many years. When they had left her, some five years ago, she had been an inch away from dullness, sad as she was that they were going their separate ways after so many years of proximity at Hogwarts, where their lives really began.

"Tell me," she said suddenly. "You two share that flat you talked about when you left?"

Ron's eyes nearly bulged out as they widened the size of teacup saucers. "Merlin, no."

Harry, in turn, guffawed. "I had almost forgot!"

Hermione relished in their tender amusement as she watched their eyes glaze over, no doubt immersed in memories.

Harry was the first to break away and inform her of his whereabouts. "We did, for a while," he growled pointedly in Ron's general direction. "I live just outside of London in a much nicer flat now, thankyouverymuch."

Ron rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on, Harry, at least admit it wasn't so bad…" Hermione watched Harry bite his tongue. Ron conceded, "All right, aside from the mould and the, er… wonderful neighbours."

Harry picked up another book at random, grumbling as he went.

And suddenly Harry's eyes lit up excitedly. He almost jumped off his seat, excitement bubbling in his voice. "Ron, Ron, listen to this: 'The Evanidus Corporis Morbus is a disease which attacked men in their late twenties during the sixteenth century, attacking the magical desoxyribo nucleic acid cells (adenine, cytosine, thymine, and guanine) and erasing its victims until they are completely invisible to the human eye.'" He lifted his eyes from the book until they met Ron's. Both suddenly wore a similar expression of pure astonishment, as if a troll had whacked them with its staff. "Remember the –" And then their eyes took over the role of speech. They were in on something that Hermione was not!

"What is going on?" she asked after a few seconds of this 'conversation' going on.

Harry seemed to remember that she was there first (again!). "Sorry. A couple of months ago, Ron and I were sent to Lyon to investigate a case that had holes pretty much everywhere. Men were disappearing left and right. Blood samples evaporated into thin air. I can't tell you how disorienting this whole ordeal was. The Ministry officials were prosecuting their own Aurors for 'lack of professionalism' and for 'tempering with evidence'. Remember, Ron? It was horrible."

Ron nodded grimly. "Yeah, it was like that until just a couple of weeks ago, when we came back home. There was one man working alongside us, Rémi, who was infected all along without our ever knowing. We never figured it out until we received an owl a day after our arrival here in Britain, and then we knew he had been infected. But every single body evaporated into thin air before we had the chance to properly investigate what was going on. Are these people dead? Do they walk amongst shadows now?"

Hermione shuddered at the thought.

Harry took over. "But most importantly, we never figured out who or what was behind this. Or rather, we have an idea, but no proof." He looked back at the book sadly. "This may very well be it: the Evanidus Disease."

Hermione curiously grabbed the book and glanced at its cover. It read Curative Theories: When the Inner Gramarye is Threatened. She seemed deep in concentration for a few seconds, as if she was pondering the results of an especially hard formula or Runic table, and then started furiously scratching something on a piece of parchment on the table. The two young men slowly leaned over it and read: 'Evanidus – Harry & Ron – a.s.a.p.'

"What does this mean?" Ron inquired, puzzled at her quickly jotted notes.

Hermione smiled gleefully. "It means I am getting out of my way to give you a hand. After all, I've only ever worked with Healers and Healing magic. I guess I could do with a bit of criminal investigation for a change."

The two Aurors met eyes and, without further ado, agreed to her plan more than happily.

"Now," she said, pulling out a quill and a few parchments, "tell me anything and everything you know or could connect to these disappearing cases. Anything at all… Events, dates, marks, signs – you name it, it could have a link with this." She grabbed her favourite new Italian Bona Fide quill and poised it on top of the parchment, ready to take notes.

Ron cocked an eyebrow at Harry, who could only be glad that the years had not changed her one small bit.

#

The light was quickly dimming. There was much to be done. The woman stood just tall enough to reach the pot of combustion oil and dumped half of its contents into the container, turning a little brass knob to push the flame up. The room brightened to a warm glow.

She looked outside the window. Dark. All dark. And the window. Dirty. Trails of an oily substance on the dirty glass. Cold. Just cold. She wrapped herself tightly in her wool shawl and rubbed her hands together to produce warmth. But still the words reflected themselves, pale and jutting out sharply before her eyes, insistent and unrelenting. She wrote as she thought, seemingly disorganised except to herself. She made lists, wrote thoughts, notes, reminders.

'_Originally in 1348 – The Damnation (era)  
17 wizard disappearances – men – 20's – 'erased'  
Related to 2007 Chart of Rights?_

_Jacob Angrivent – Death 2006 – Illiers-Combray – 27  
Henri Fellé – D2006 – Rouen – 29  
Vincent Trécourt – D2006 – Paris – 26  
Jean-Christophe Ardent – D2006 – Rouen – 28  
Gabriel St-Jean – D2007 – Paris – 28  
Raphaël Condiacre – D2007 – Paris – 28  
Philippe Monticrastre – D2007 – Bourges – 27  
Matthieu Petitcours – D2007 – Vézelay – 26  
Louis-José Patenique – D2007 – Reims – 29  
Martin Marsouin – D2007 – Troyes – 28  
Émile Canéda – D2007 – Tours – 27  
Jules Snyder – D2007 – Paris – 27  
Julien Bellemire – D2007 – Le Havre – 29  
Jacques Sansoupirs – D2007 – St-Étienne – 28  
Rémi Rocher – D2007 – Lyon – 28  
Jonathan Arson – D2007 – Lyon – 27  
David Létourneau – D2007 – Lyon – 26 _

_Is it a curse? A virus? A bacterium? Could it be potion-induced?  
Mostly greater north-centre cities, moved to south at the end  
There is a link between the blood sample disappearances and this disease, to be sure.  
Mg gene erased, which in turn erases the body (?) Could it be gradual, or is it sudden?  
Go see head geneticist – Auldenberk.'_

The woman sighed at once at an empty space and closed her mind against a nagging little voice: You're so far away from the truth, Hermione…

#

Harry stroked his scar – it didn't hurt at all anymore, it was just an old habit that repeated itself especially when he concentrated, like he expected searing pain to come bursting at him unsuspected. Ron had once called him a masochist – that he actually enjoyed the pain Voldemort had once induced in him. It pissed him off royally.

Harry rolled his eyes and scratched away at the open parchment in front of him, marking the major events Hermione had asked him to check and date for accuracy. The flame next to him quivered, but he scratched away still.

It was not often that he worked with your ordinary wizard or witch – usually he and Ron, and basically all of the Auror crew, were the ones doing their own dirty work themselves, whether it be on the field, on assignment or in the other sub-departments. But since their encounter with Hermione – a pleasant surprise, really – Harry was not so sure that he and Ron would be working alone by themselves much anymore. Three brains are better than one, Harry's mind kept repeating to him like a broken record. Of course he knew; the three of them had been successful in pretty much everything they engaged in together… He needn't reminding.

Harry looked at his hands with sluggish disinterest. There was not much ink to be wasted when it came to him in particular. The Man-Who-Saved-All, with dirty stiff hands and blackened under-nails; a dull square English face and its pallid, almost sickly tint…

Seventh year was when Harry Potter noticed a major change in him that had absolutely nothing to do with his tardy physical growth. His skin used to itch with the strange new hidden secret lying deep within him. A monster, he had thought himself to be when the first burst of it trembled and split through him. He still remembered the painful explosion in his fingertips, the terrorised scream that had not found its way out, the pounding in his ears and the surprise of finding that he was still alive.

He still sometimes felt the urge, but knew now how to handle it. Sometimes it became attuned to his strong emotions; other times it just wanted straight out.

So, now, as Harry James Potter felt the tell-tale tingling rush through him, almost taunting him, he sighed and rested his head on the soft headrest behind him. The young man held his wand hand, empty, aloft in front of him.

Next thing he knew, the whole room around him was glowing a bright eerie blue colour, enveloping his body it its brilliant light.

Any passer-by might have been surprised at the sudden change in lighting in the drawing room of that corner flat by the road, but none knew the very essence in which Harry James Potter bathed in everyday.

#

Ron's eyes were bloodshot with fatigue when Vivian Weasley, nee O'Sullivan, opened her eyes to find her husband standing stock still in the doorway as he often did after long sleepless and tiring days or nights of assignments at the Auror Department.

She held her little cry of surprise at seeing him thus, like she often did when she found him like this. Instead the young woman shifted and caught his eye. She swallowed with difficulty. "What's wrong, love? Have you seen a ghost?" she asked very quietly, hugging her legs tightly, wishing he was not standing so still, eyes bulging out of their sockets, wishing he would just take her to bed and get it over with until next time when, who knew…?

Ron's strange behaviour had become a habit. They were newlyweds: who would have known it would someday come to this? To a moment in their marriage where they could not even recognise each other, let alone speak to one another without feeling like strangers. It was true, she had never known much about him or his past, which he never talked about. Ron Weasley preferred to keep his image as mysterious as possible… or with her, anyway. Who knew what he told everyone else? Who knew how very ignorant she was of the single most important man in her life?

Her husband said nothing as he slipped out of the drawing room, leaving Vivian a small anxious form in the dark, eyes shining and miserable. The lonely woman heard the door to her husband's office shut with a crisp, unmistakable clicking sound of the lock.

Locking me out.


	2. The Peak Quarrel

**Chapter One: The Peak Quarrel**

The year is nineteen ninety-seven. It is just past dark in the common room when two sixth year Gryffindor prefects make their entrance known, causing quite the commotion, followed by their famed, quiet best friend. They are Ronald Bilius Weasley, Hermione Jane Granger, and Harry James Potter, and every single present person in the common room glances at them as they enter, then roll their eyes and return to whatever activity they were engaged in before their sudden arrival. It is rather customary for the students to be disturbed during a quiet activity such as reading a third year textbook, writing a ten-foot NEWT-level Potions or Transfiguration essay, playing wizard's chess or whatever else there was to do on a late Sunday evening. In fact it was frequent occurrence and was usually looked upon as one would a dull school schedule.

Tonight was no different.

"That first year boy! That first year boy! Poor little tyke, he must be terrified! Come now, Hermione, couldn't you see he was having you on from the start? And in front of half his clique, thank you very much," Ron nagged joyously, making himself look rather important as he looked down upon Hermione from his six foot two frame.

Hermione, instead of showing defeat, narrowed her eyes into very small brown slits. "It is sickening how much joy you get out of this. What day is it today, Ron? 'Let's make Hermione feel like a little shite' day?" She shook her head derisively as she watched Ron's ear tips redden violently, then pushed her hair behind her ears. "At least I'm not the one who tripped all over himself trying to separate the kids. With those gangly legs of yours, you had better be careful, Weasley. You might end up wobbling all over the place."

Ron threw his hands up in the air, not in defeat, but in exasperation. "Is that what you fear? Because, thanks for the vote of confidence, but no thanks at all." He shook his head. "Get over yourself, seriously."

Hermione had been about to storm off, but instead she whirled back around and was none-too-happy as she yelled in rage, face red from fury, "Get over myself? Ronald Weasley, you had better be eternally grateful that wand is resting securely deep into my pocket, because… because you would have made a very loathsome ferret very jealous right now."

Ron snorted. "You may be dead scary with a wand sometimes, but witty comebacks were never your thing, Hermione. Stick to your Potions and History of Magic books and save your breath."

Hermione's eyes watered, but she held her ground and ground out with a trembling voice, "You disgust me, Ron. You have no human feelings whatsoever, you self-centred prat. Frankly, the only reason I ever stuck around with you was Harry…" She glanced quickly, fearfully, at Harry, frowned at herself, and continued. "Harry's the only one who cares what sort of lengths I ever go through for both of you. At least I know someone appreciates what I do for its just valour when I save both your arses from a very bad outcome!"

Harry, who had been silent until just then, dared to speak up. "Hey, whoa, why was I brought into this conversation in the first place?"

Ron laughed in Hermione's face, not breaking eye contact for anything in the world. "Can't you see her witty plan? 'Let's bring Harry into the spat, maybe he will be a nice biased mediator and side with me so that Ron gets to look like a bloody arse, and everyone will then take pity on me.' How clever a plan, isn't it?"

Hermione felt the moist trail down her cheek and moved toward the girls' staircase – how could she have let this happen to her? She felt so ashamed of herself – but was stopped mid-track by a wounding pressure on her right wrist.

She met Ron's thunderous eyes and wished she could break down and melt into the stone floor. She would not have to suffer this. But it wasn't so.

Averting her eyes, she heard, very distinctly though it was very low, "I'm not finished with you just yet." The angry groan echoed in her ears and, for the first time since she met the clumsy redhead, she was actually deathly scared. "You always make my life miserable," he ground out, not letting go of her wrist. His hot tempered breath made the hairs along her arm prickle even though he was not even close enough… she could actually feel his breath in this moment, right now.

Hermione's eyes flared as she heard him speak. "I make your life miserable? How could you even say that, when I'm not even doing anything right now to make you miserable? You're a horrible person, Ron." Here she whimpered; without knowing it, Ron had tightened his grip on her wrist. Hermione thought that surely her bones might snap any second. "Ron, you're hurting me," she whimpered again.

And this time he actually listened to her plea. He unhanded her and looked at his own hand as he might have something that had stung him. His breath was coming very short as he realised he had just been about to harm his best friend, a girl, a young woman. Slowly he looked around at all of their spectators who listened in only half interestedly as they did usually. His former anger resurfaced, but this time he kept it in check with his hands fisted at his sides before making a low guttural irritated sound in his throat and storming off without another word.

Hermione watched on sadly, rubbing her sore wrist, and then caught Harry's eye. He gave her a small apologetic smile, and together they wordlessly retreated to their separate dormitories.

#

It all seemed so silly after so many years of it sleeping locked behind a closed door of her deepest memories.

This was what Hermione thought as she scrambled some eggs in a pan while rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. If there was one thing she liked to do in the morning to wake up properly, it was to cook. She wasn't skilled, by any means. It had to be something relatively easy, of course. Hermione had tried dozens of times to charm the stove so that the eggs would be perfect, but even then they turned out burnt or a most unsavoury shade of purple or green. In any case, she was definitely not destined for a big break in a posh wizarding restaurant in downtown London. So she stuck to Muggle cooking most of the time.

Hermione shook her head with a little smirk before being suddenly enveloped briskly into a pair of strong arms. A faint musk and the remnants of cheap muggle cologne filled her nostrils besides the strong scent of eggs that filled the kitchen.

"Fixing breakfast, yeah?" asked the deep, hoarse voice of Hermione's flatmate – it was obvious he had just woken up: hair in a disorderly state, sleep clearly still floating behind his eyes… He detached himself from her at her quick nod and went to straddle a chair backwards at the small round table. He smiled slightly while rubbing the sleep from his eyes, but Hermione was too busy avoiding his stare, and he did not notice. "I didn't hear you come in last night…" he said with a false accusatory tone meant to make her smile as it would have any other day, but today Hermione was unusually preoccupied.

"I didn't want to wake you." She set his plate in front of him. "I'm sorry, should I have?" She sat down in front of him.

Ted Wentworth's fork froze in its trail to his mouth. "Hermione, I was teasing you. Hell, that's not even called teasing. I was being completely conversational."

Hermione finally lifted her eyes to his, mid-bite, and froze as well. Ted saw the tired lines, the evasion… "I'm sorry, I guess I'm just a bit tired," she replied unconvingly.

Ted sighed, setting his fork down, untouched. "What's wrong?"

Hermione was not sure she knew the answer to even such a harmless and simple question as this one. She looked down and frowned at her eggs. "It's confusing… this is confusing," she said, evading the general question.

"What is?" he asked levelly.

Hermione, out of nervous habit, ran her hand through her short boyish curls. A short cut she had adopted to let go. But of what? Hermione was not so sure she knew the answer. "I'm not sure," she replied after a beat, mirroring what her mind was telling her.

Ted snorted, apparently amused by her perplexed expression. "Honey, you're going to have to explain what's wrong because I cannot read minds yet."

Hermione shook her head much as one would a spider's web. "Never you mind. I think I'm coming down with something."

Ted looked concerned all of a sudden. "Everything all right? Want me to get you something at the drugstore?"

Hermione shook her head one last time. "No. I'm fine."

And then she stood up, leaving her plate untouched, heading toward the door, grabbing her robes, Accio'ing some parchments into her hand, and Disapparating out of sight, leaving a very disconcerted flatmate behind.

Hermione knew she was not being very rational. She and Ted had been flatmates for a good two months now. They had opted for hers finally because it was a little bit bigger and cleaner – his had been cracked at the walls and the ceiling often leaked… a man's flat, in other words – and now they both paid for the monthly electricity and water bills.

They had met at a charity party held in Westminster and had hit it off at their own rhythm. It had been very slow at first – he had just come out of a long-going relationship; she had solemnly sworn to herself that she would not engage in any long-term relationships for a long time – and even now it still was.

Ted came from a long line of muggles. He had retraced his magical lineage just recently for fun and had come up nearly empty-handed. His nearest relative of magical blood was a blacksmith's wife in the 1700's. The woman had been burned at the stake before bearing her second child. Her little girl had inherited the magical gene, but it had not been active, and thus until Ted's generation. Both his brother and him had attended a regular primary muggle school before attending Hogwarts, nine years prior to her, Harry, Ron and their friends.

He now worked for the Ministry's Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, in the Bureau of Protection for Shapeshifting Creatures, which englobed werewolves and other wereanimals, keeping track of records, sending mail to invite its members to conventions, meetings and, a week prior to full moon, to secret and safe Ministry-protected locations where they could acquire Wolfsbane and shape-shift without a worry. Basically, the new Minister had installed this new Bureau to make certain that wild wereanimals would be contained and therefore produce less wereanimals, and that they would be safe and protected during their monthly Craving.

But the Ministry itself could not cease the racism. Wereanimals were still very much the subject of controversy in the magical world, even in these much-advanced ages. That was why Hermione knew nothing about where exactly Ted worked – rumours ran that the Bureau of Protection for Shapeshifting Creatures was the only one in its league to be located elsewhere than within the Ministry itself, and was as such to avoid discrimination. Other rumours were that the Bureau had been placed upon a Diversion Spell, ensuring that only those who owned a special key were allowed in.

Ted was home much more often than Hermione, she had to give him that, despite his being extremely secretive about his job. Usually she spent entire days at the library or at Auldenberk, working tirelessly and reading herself sick to the point where she squinted and her sight was blurred.

And yet here she was, sitting down at Rosenbaurf, engulfed once again in a brick.

_There has got to be something else about the Evanidus…_

Yes, Hermione's days were long and rather tedious, but overall they generally were an enjoyable burden.

#

Guilt tugging at his heart, Ron raked a hand through his stringy hair as it captured the faint light spill in from the thin fabric hanging from the window. He wanted to sit at the windowsill, but thought otherwise; sleep often did not find him even though he sought it relentlessly.

He glanced at his wife and slowly undressed, the cool air hitting him on impact – how did he look now, so devoid of emotion? Frightening? Insane? Soulless?

She was sleeping, a pink flannel night-gown already twisted between herself and the sheets – she must have tossed and turned in her sleep after he left, he thought. It was late, he conceded, or early… When he slipped beneath the blankets he still felt cold.

And yet she murmured something incoherent and twisted around to find warmth. She found Ron.

Ron lay perfectly still, eyes wide open. I don't deserve this… So many months of waiting in bed, waiting for him to come out of his office… He wondered how she could have handled it for so long. And even now.

How could she have locked it away and never used his carelessness against him to hurt him in the end? Instead she'd helped him all the way.

Ronald Weasley turned away from his wife and sought the bright rays with half-closed eyes.

#

"Whatever's wrong, love?"

He jumped, causing his teacup to almost topple down to the linoleum floor in a most spectacular crash.

She met his eyes and recoiled. More than once she had learned to not query him further when he sent her a cool stare. She had never thought to overrule her fear and stand up to him… He was far too impressing. Sometimes she even wondered why he'd pined for her at all.

Silence. Consistency. Tension. Fear. Power.

These five ruled her short life and marriage with Ronald Weasley.

But however could she live without him?

"Not now, Vi."

Née O'Sullivan, Vivian was a petite witch with rather basic magical power. A Hufflepuff at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry starting in 1996, she had made it to her NEWTs very barely alive, almost failing everything save for Herbology and Care for Magical Creatures. She wasn't gifted in the magical way, and it had caused her much pain since the very beginning: her parents, both wizard and witch from long magical bloodlines, had looked at her with pity, and her older brother and sister, both extremely gifted, had laughed at and teased her every chance they had got in their youth.

It was with some surprise, then, that they all learned that the famed Ron Weasley, hero and survivor of the Second Great War against the Dark Lord, and prodigious Auror-to-be to boot, had asked to marry her, of all people.

At first she had refused, clearly suffering from a serious panic attack. Far from being very pretty; extremely clumsy; the worst witch of her time, or so it seemed… How could he love her?

And then he'd told her this with faraway, dreamy eyes: "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me," and she'd thought she might cry for the beauty of his words.

Vivian sighed. He wasn't fooling anyone with his mask anymore, least of all her. How could she have been fooled?

"Are you leaving today?" she queried plainly.

The answer was simple: she loved him with every inch of her soul.

"Depends what Harry's owl says."

Vivian shook her head to herself very slightly. Of course that meant yes. Sometimes she was surprised that she understood him so well, considering…

"When?" she asked casually, though the pity she was so accustomed to from other people seemed to resurface again and taunt her full-force.

"Should be any minute now. You know Harry."

Of course she did. An entire chapter had been dedicated to essays and biographies, as well as newspaper clippings, in her Defence Against the Dark Arts textbooks after the Dark Lord's defeat. Despite being a horrendous witch, Vivian had studied her textbooks by heart and remembered the entirety of them even after five years out of Hogwarts.

She hadn't known Harry in person at all back then, of course. Only glimpses of him in the hallways as he hung out with Ron and Hermione Granger during the two years she had seen them all at Hogwarts together. She remembered Ron's tired, almost lifeless eyes, and Hermione's strained and often-stiff posture, as if they had both spent the night awake working on devising a secret plan. Harry, in her memories, was a crestfallen figure, leaning between both anger and confusion. The famous trio was split, spoilt. And then some time later they were back, pulled by mysterious strings. She remembered the surprised whispers in the hallways.

She had only met Harry Potter properly at Ron and Harry's flat during a mutual friend's birthday party. The Golden Trio was once again no more. Both men had started training at Auror Academy in Norfolk a few months prior and lived close to campus in a tiny flat that could welcome at the most twenty party guests – they stretched it to forty-six. Harry had been more than welcoming, Ron had been melancholic but charming nonetheless. She'd learned all about Harry's past, humbling words aside, and had learned to appreciate his presence more than his scar.

But Harry Potter had always been a mysterious figure more so than Ron anyway, and it had always bothered her slightly. What more dark secrets could Harry Potter possibly be hiding? A self-proclaimed bachelor who thrived for action… Or did action thrive for the Boy-Who-Lived?

"When are you coming back?"

Ron shrugged, sipping from his cup. "Dunno."

Dunno… It seemed to be his answer for everything lately. She wanted to scream, just to see how far she could push… Would he care then?

But of course she was much too proper. "Do you want more tea?" She disappeared in the kitchen without waiting for an answer, leaving bitterness hanging in the air in her wake.

She was suffocating.

She heard the deafening silence before a hoot reached her ears. The rustling of paper. Silence. She thought she could make out his silhouette drinking calmly from the cup of tea through the wall. Silence. Vivian leaned her back to the wall separating them and closed her eyes, hearing his answer in her mind before he had even uttered a word.

"I've to go." And gone he was.

Vivian slid down the wall and slowly hugged her knees to her chest before falling even deeper.

#

Picture were what Harry treasured most, still or moving as they were. Maybe they were a wink to his past. His father, from a long lineage of wizards and witches that went unbroken for centuries, and his mother, a most gifted muggle-born witch.

His first photo album ever had been handed to him with one single moving photograph: his dead parents holding him as a mere baby. No doubt they'd have made wonderful parents, he thought. He sometimes secretly wished he could remember one single moment with them.

His second picture had been that of his best friends and him at Hogwarts. Now he owned more pictures than his album could ever hope to hold; more than three hundred pictures, all of them scattered here and there in his flat, decorating his walls, and perched on his work desk, were a testament of his often strange life.

As he waited for his redheaded duty partner, Harry Potter let his thoughts drift and studied picture after picture of special events, parties, Kodak moments (Ginny's impersonation of an angry Mrs. Weasley with a mortified Ron as Mrs. Weasley stood behind her daughter with a rather unamused expression? Priceless)…

Harry remembered sixth year, when his life had taken a wrong turn once again, when he had made a wrong assumption that his friends were turning their backs on him. But, moreover, he remembered sixth year before all of that had ever begun to happen…

He felt a grin creep onto his face. Watching them go at it had been exasperating all right, he wasn't about to fool himself. It was such an old act that everyone around them had grown accustomed to their bickering antics in Gryffindor. Everyone, that is, except him. Yet he should have been used to it by then.

Now he could laugh all he wanted about it. Oh, he had laughed even then, especially at night when Ron muttered about a certain someone in his sleep ("Annoying… going to twist her neck… bloody buggering books… Know-It-All…").

When Ron finally Flooed in, he found Harry staring up at a frame on his wall with a large knowing smile on his face. Ron took one look at it and rolled his eyes.

"Oi there, what did you summon me here for?"

Harry tore his eyes from Colin's sneaky wizard's photograph of Hermione and Ron at it during a row, including Harry's exasperated face. He grasped a folder marked with the usual runic symbol which designated the Auror Department, followed by a long serial number that Ron quickly recognised as the one for the Evanidus files.

"I marked all the dates. Just wanted you to double-check before I get these to Hermione."

Ron lifted his eyes from the files that Harry had already handed over. "She contact you since yesterday?"

"No, she said she'd be going over her own stuff at the library."

Ron rolled his eyes with a smirk. "Can't remember the last time I set foot in a library."

Harry looked at him very seriously. "Last week ring a bell?"

Ron waved him away dismissively. "Yeah, as part of an assignment, prat." He walked out of Harry's office, and Harry heard his best friend's muttering from the next office. Convenient, he thought amusedly.

Another picture.

Leaves falling. Scarves flying. Happiness just before the storm. Maybe, just maybe they could have been, then. But the fates had chosen otherwise, and things had fallen fast afterward. Goodbyes, promises somehow broken… And that was that.

At least their arguing had put a little piquante in his life when it had been at its worse. At least he hadn't felt the impending doom when he'd heard their near-constant squabbling. It sure filled whole nights spent walking across Britain.

Harry leaned backward on his chair and poised his feet on his desk, willing his eyes to close contentedly.

Perhaps Ron would open his eyes one of these days and see what he had missed since… hell, since the very beginning!

Ron burst in brusquely just as Harry saw a shock of brown hair dash behind a wall.

And then he felt the itch.

Perfect. Bloody. Timing.

Ron, seeing his scrunched up expression, became concerned immediately. "Everything all right, mate?"

"Perfect, just… fucking… perfect," Harry ground out between gritted teeth as he violently shot his arm down. The room was soon filled with a pallid, yet strong and blinding blue light.

Ron merely flipped a page on Harry's desk. "Perfect timing indeed," he said dryly. "Too bad the crooks never met you at times like these. They'd be dust." Then, when the light subdued and Harry slouched down in his seat, exhausted, he waved the parchments in the air in front of Harry's eyes. "Looked this over. Seems fine to me. Added a couple of comments here and there, if you don't mind."

Harry never got past opening his mouth. "I don't."

Ron sharply whirled around and was immediately face to face with Hermione.

Hermione's cheeks flushed very slightly, tinting them a very lovely light pink. "Is this a bad time? I was falling asleep at the library." She was looking exclusively at Harry now. "Are you all right? I – er – I didn't know they were so strong now."

Harry smiled very wanly and sat back up straight. "I'm fine, beautiful." Then he shrugged.

Ron was gaping like a fish.

"Ron!" Harry called, laughing. "Let her in, prat."

Ron turned pink and shot him a glare before letting Hermione in.

"This is a nice office, Harry," she said upon entering. Harry graced her with something of a smile. She then sat down and proceeded to pull out some notes from a folder. "Anyway, I came here because I've been looking into some information at Rosenbaurf. I found next to nothing, and it's pretty suspicious because…" She trailed off, cutting herself off. "You know that book, _Curative Theories: When The Inner Gramarye Is Threatened_? Well, it so happens that not one other book talked about it. Then I went to Hogwarts, in the Restricted Section, and… surprise of surprises, there was myriad of books about it. So I did my thing, and came up with a date." Hermione pulled in a breath. "The Evanidus was originally created by Lord MacNoff in 1535. He brewed it to erase one of his servants who was threatening to turn him in to the magical authorities about a secret deed his lord had done for the goblins."

Ron turned a blank face to her.

Hermione sighed. "Honestly, Ron, did you ever listen in History of Magic at all?" At his telltale silence, she groaned out loud and rolled her eyes. "Goblin Rebellions, year 1533." She waved her hand dismissively. "Anyway, he created a poisonous bacterium that slowly 'erased' its carrier and victim."

Harry nodded, then frowned. "Okay, but how did this servant get the disease? Was it in the air, or what?"

Hermione shook her head. "No, nothing quite so far-fetched." She shuffled a few parchments, then pulled one out. "Lord MacNoff just poured the bacteria in his servant's drink. What he didn't know, though, was that it wouldn't act up until a few weeks later. Ergo, Lord MacNoff was denounced the same day, and his servant, er, used the services of a Polyjuice brothel, and so on and so forth."

Ron grimaced. "Disturbing image, thanks."

"But how come we never heard of the Evanidus if it's been around since the seventeenth century?" Ron asked quizzically. "This makes no sense."

Hermione shrugged. "Perhaps the authorities took care of it and made sure the incident didn't make it to the books… It's not exactly taught at Hogwarts. Some muggles must have been aware of it too, but since this disease only affected wizards they weren't quite as alarmed. But perhaps they helped, as well, making sure it wasn't written in muggle history books either…" She bit her lip, a thoughtful expression passing on her face.

Ron frowned. "Why now, though? Do you think it's related to the French Chart of Rights?"

Hermione was at a loss just then. She turned to meet Ron's stormy eyes. "I haven't the foggiest. I'll need to study your notes if you want me to help further."

All Auror Secrecy Statement be damned. Within mere seconds the Aurors' folder was in Hermione's hands.

"By all means, Hermione… help."


	3. The Broken & The Finding

**Chapter Two: The Broken & The Finding**

He hissed, waking up at once.

Harry was watching him from his four-poster, curious and avid eyes, but scared as well… a green streak in the dead of night, as it was.

Won't the nightmares ever go away? Ron asked himself as he wiped the cold sweat that had broken out all over his sickly pale skin. And the headaches…he thought again as blood started pounding like mad in his head.

"You all right?" Harry asked clumsily, and Ron was (painfully) reminded that his best mate couldn't possibly know what to do or say, or how to act toward a person who had just had a horrible nightmare. Blame the muggles who raised him…

Ron groaned, dismissing his friend. "I'm fine." He turned over and shut his eyes, trying in vain to let peace seep into him.

But still Harry looked uncertain. Lately, or rather since Ron's headaches had started, Harry had grown further away as though it was all too much to bear.

"Do you… I mean, I could get Hermione for you if you like," he whispered sleepily as Seamus started kicking invisible creatures in his sleep. Once again Ron turned toward Harry's voice and was once again disconcerted to find two green gems glinting in the dark – how did he do it?

Could Hermione really help? After all, she had tried numerous times before, and no matter how good she was at any given spell or Extract of Whatever, there was no healing him, magic or potion involved.

But there was more to it, he knew it.

Ron twisted in his bed and sighed. "Sure, mate," he whispered back, "go get her." I doubt she'll be able to help at all… but it's worth another try, now, isn't it?

Ron was practically failing this year, hands down. No matter how hard he tried to concentrate on the professors' lectures, there would always be the pounding in his head – was someone trying to break through it? – as well as the incredible sensitivity that made his senses prickle; there was too much noise – whoever was shouting now? –, too many aromas to smell at once, it felt too cool or too hot outside, his eyes were burning, and images were randomly thrown around in his head: a faceless figure, a heated moment, happy clichés…

Hermione burst into the boys' dormitory – had she been awake all this time? – with her hair a wild mass of frizzes and her eyes bearing a brown haggard expression. Quickly she slipped into the vicinity of his four-poster and shut the curtains, casting a 'Silencio' to construct a barrier between them and the rest of the room, to shut them away.

Harry was never pleased to be cast away like this, but what exactly could he ever do to help his condition?

Hermione scorned Ron after quickly pressing her lukewarm hand onto his forehead. "You shouldn't be sitting up, Ron. Your headache won't get better this way."

Ron pushed her hand away, slightly annoyed. "Look, this one's been coming and going for the past two weeks. Whatever I do, it doesn't completely go away, Hermione."

She sat back, registering the newest update on his situation. "You never told me this. Maybe I should go see Madam Pomfrey and ask her about it." She started away, but Ron pulled her back and hissed at the searing pain banding at his temples.

"Don't bother." His stare was so disarming – how much he suffered – that she sat back down next to him.

However as she sat, her eyes filled with tears and she slowly sank into his heated chest, humid from the sweat that still clung to him. "Oh, Ron, I really wish I knew how to heal you."

Ron smiled painstakingly, cheek against her hair, and he smelled her sweetness. "You're doing more than enough, Hermione."

Without a word, she embraced him tightly and wound her fingers around the small of his back, hoping to send some of her cool warmth toward his nerve ends so that his headache would pass a bit.

Slowly he pushed her away and rested back against his headboard, closing his eyes against at least one unpleasant sensation. "We're not getting anywhere, now, are we?"

Hermione sighed dejectively. "I was hoping last weekend was the good one, but we found nothing, did we?" she said quietly before opening his curtain to peek outside.

Ron's voice was tight with anxiety when he spoke next. "Where are you going?"

Hermione closed her hand around the objects she was rummaging around for, then proceeded to close the curtain back around them. "I'm right here, Ron, don't worry. I just have to give you your medicine."

Ron groaned. "Remind me to never get ill again."

Hermione giggled quite happily despite the quite disagreeable situation. "Come now, it can't be that bad."

"I'd like to see you try some of this stuff… I really wish they'd start putting some tasty flavours in potions."

Hermione smiled distantly. "You know, muggle medicine is actually starting to taste better now…" she replied quite randomly, as if she were somewhere else rather than right next to him.

"Yeah, seems like its wizarding counterpart still needs some improving…" Ron muttered. "Never thought I'd actually compliment those ruddy old muggles on something."

"Hey, I resent that," Hermione cried, looking up from pouring half a cup of pain relieving potion and wishing she were able to poke him relentlessly at this precise moment.

Ron winked. "'Course you do. I like to get you all hot and bothered…" He then grimaced as he swallowed the contents from the cup. He settled back against his headboard, then sighed, waiting for the pain to slowly subside.

For a few more moments there was only the eerie silence of the night surrounding them – Harry had no doubt gone back to sleep – then Hermione moved to inch away.

Ron held out a hand. "Stay."

She complied.

#

When Hermione woke up on the weekends with Ron's freckled arm thrown around her hip, she would carefully remove his arm and slip out. She'd peek out first to make quite certain that neither Dean, Neville nor Seamus would see her, and then she would make for her bedroom, stacking a heavy load of textbooks, dictionaries and thick volumes 'borrowed' from the library the night before.

She'd climb back up the boys' dormitory tower, opening the door to find the place just as quiet as she had previously left it. Hermione would settle back onto the warm spot that her body had left, leaning on Ron's headboard to read and translate a Latin volume. This was not for her personal enjoyment – although, who could possibly find this so unpleasant? – but she did it because she had to… had to find answers buried deep somewhere in these yellowed pages that smelled of Time.

Ron usually woke up the same way. A nightmare, sheer colds sweat all over his pallid body, moaning, seeking warmth and comfort. Hermione would set her quill down and twist around to capture his head between her cool palms, brushing the sweat off his face – his brows, his forehead, his temples, his eyelids – and pushing his damp hair away from his face… She was probably the only person who cared anymore.

His eyes would open, and deception would fill them. "Again?"

Hermione would gather him in her arms like her mother had often done when she had got ill, and press her lips firmly to his forehead. "There, don't worry," she would whisper as tenderly as she knew.

Presently Ron slowly sat up shoulder-to-shoulder with her, bringing one hand up to shield his eyes from the light for the moment. Then he looked to his right, where Hermione was watching him intently, like she always did. He knew what she thought, knew what she would ask before she even opened her mouth to utter her question.

Are you all right?

"I feel like shite. Like… I'm going to vomit and faint all at once."

Hermione sighed, folding her knees and curling in a tight ball, her nightshift falling over her legs in a leisurely manner. "God, I really hate this… I hate being helpless."

Ron looked at her very seriously now – the effort to keep his eyes open was incredibly demanding. He thanked the heavens or whoever was up there that it was a Saturday morning. This meant he wouldn't have to concentrate on hard tasks all day. This meant sleeping long enough so that he'd be ready to tackle tonight.

Tonight he and Hermione were to slip out of the Gryffindor dormitories, out of the common room, and straight to the Restricted Section in the library… just like every Saturday to date since the beginning of term.

Ron crept closer and gathered her in his arms despite the pang that chose to attack his head at this exact moment. "Hey, there. Don't go around thinking that. As I said last night, yeah?" You're doing more than enough.

Hermione sighed again, and then spoke, her words muffled by his blue- and white-striped pyjama top. "I guess you're right. I just don't know where to look anymore."

Ron grinned at that, and Hermione, for one second, recognised the old Ron, the cynical Ron she used to know. "Miss Know-It-All, who doesn't know something? You should feel real ashamed of yourself." He tssk'ed. "Now, now, we can't let you go on like this, yeah?"

Hermione shrieked, and though his head hurt like a colossal troll was trampling happily on it, he managed to tackle her down and tickle her sides.

Hermione was squirming and twisting to get out of his grasp, but he was far too heavy for her, so she resigned quickly to her predicament, pouting while occasionally giggling here and there.

They never noticed the curtain part next to them. "I thought you'd have gone back by now," the voice said with a twinge of frustration.

Ron froze and Hermione looked over Ron's shoulder to see a very brooding, very royally pissed-off Harry Potter. She gently pushed Ron away and sat up properly, arranging her night-dress so that it fell a little more appropriately, and brushed back a few loose frizzes.

Ron sagged down into his pillow as Hermione smiled the faintest of smiles. "What's wrong, Harry?" she asked finally, coming around to ask it.

The intruder rolled his eyes. "Had something to tell you but I guess I'm a little unwanted here." And then the curtains fell back, isolating Ron and Hermione from the exterior once again.

Hermione stared wildly at Ron, who looked too tired for wear, and grabbed her wand from under the pillow, casting a 'Sonorus' to reverse her previous spell on his four-poster. She leaned in and pressed her palm to feel Ron's forehead, then brushed her lips across his cheek. "See you tonight," she whispered before disappearing for the day.

Ron fell asleep right away.

#

"Will Madame be ordering anything?"

Hermione, startled from her rêverie, looked up to the serveur and set her Champagne glass down. Her memories were still raw on the surface.

However she did realise that Ted still had not shown up. Have I been stood up? Blushing, she raked a nervous hand through her short curls. "Well," she conceded aloud to her attendant, "I guess I'll order, then."

The waiter flipped a page in his pad and produced a pen, waiting.

"I'll have a Papillottes de poulet et tapenade, please."

"Will Madame have wine?"

"I'll have a dry red… Do you have some Châteauneuf-du-Pape?"

"Of course."

Hermione finally looked up into the waiter's eyes and was surprised to find they were and all-too-familiar shade of cobalt. But the hair wasn't right. The skin wasn't right. The build wasn't right. She shook her hair to clear it of those thoughts. "Thank you. That will be all."

Strangely enough, Hermione was not revolted to have been stood up for what seemed like the billionth time. She was not about to cry. Only sadness filled her mind, along with long-ago memories.

The library. A flickering candle. A scratching quill. The rustle of pages being flipped. A tired yawn.

They stayed up all night, sometimes until even as early as five in the morning. Researching. Looking deep into things to find the answer to the mystery. Trying to find a treatment that would work once and for all.

He never whinged. Always kept reading and gathering rather useless information that, in fact, he probably still remembered. He was quite lucid, to say the very least. This had surprised Hermione a great deal at first – she'd never thought Ron might ever be heading down to the library of his own free will. Who knew, really?

They found mostly nothing; a bunch of platitudes and essays on medical magic, which, now that she really thought about it, had probably sparked her interest in magimedical research.

In the beginning they had had no idea what they were after and where to find what they were after. The library was a big labyrinth and both of them were running around in it. Then it became more precise as Hermione found a Latin book tucked away in the deepest corner of the library. A book thick enough that it took Hermione close to a full year to translate it into intelligible English. A book that had probably existed even when the Founders had built the school. A book that had probably saved Ron's life during the Second Great Wizarding War to Voldemort and even now, in his current job as a Junior Auror.

Hermione had known by instinct that this book was the one, that only this book would finally uncover the mysteries behind Ron's persisting headaches. And she had been right.

After a year of carrying translating dictionaries to the library and back on Saturdays and re-reading her translations to understand what exactly it said, she found the treatment – or lack thereof.

This was before the War. Before he risked his own life in more than one way – he could get killed, yes, but there was more that the book implied. Before he ever went with Harry to Auror Academy. And yet the book said he could kill and, in an instant, die himself.

Until then, her only worries had been that they should pass their NEWTs and were in danger of getting caught being awake outside of Prefect after-dark duties and in the library and in the Restricted Section. She had constantly been a ball of nerves, wondering if that hand lingering close to hers was a pure coincidence or if she should jump to conclusions.

"Entrée, Madame."

Once more, Hermione was startled by the serveur, who wore a mask of total indifference to her erratic conduct. He served her wine.

"Oh, thank you. I had almost forgot."

He wandered away, leaving her to her thoughts again.

#

Ron hated leaving, but he couldn't help it. Wasn't it one of the key components to the creation of his life?

However there were two components to his life that he'd never left, ever: his family, and Harry. Both of which were surrounding him right now. And Vi.

Ron liked to separate all three of them into neat categories: his family was the binds that tie – he adored every single last one of them –, Harry was the friendship, and Vi was the acquaintances. Simple, really.

Ron looked at his mother – he thought she had just asked him something – and was so breath-taken. Molly Weasley seemed so mature and erudite and authoritarian, but childlike at once. God, he loved his Mum.

Right now she was staring at him with equal interest, but with a glint that Ron didn't recognise at once. Then she glanced at Ron's sister, and Ginny smiled ever so slightly. His Mum then winked – when had she picked that up?

"Tell us, Ron. Whatever have you been up to lately? We only ever get the news from the papers, and Merlin knows they can't be trusted." Was she implying what Ron thought she was implying?

_Harry Potter's Secret Heartache_

_A boy like no other, perhaps - yet a boy suffering all the usual pangs of adolescence, writes Rita Skeeter. Deprived of love since the tragic demise of his parents, fourteen-year-old Harry Potter thought he found solace in his steady girlfriend at Hogwarts, Muggle-born Hermione Granger. Little did he know that he would shortly be suffering yet another emotional blow in a life already littered with personal loss._

_Miss Granger, a plain but ambitious girl, seems to have a taste for famous wizards that Harry alone cannot satisfy. Since the arrival at Hogwarts of Viktor Krum, Bulgarian Seeker and hero of the last World Quidditch Cup, Miss Granger has been toying with both boys' affections. Krum, who is openly smitten with the devious Miss Granger, has already invited her to visit him in Bulgaria over the summer holidays and insists that he has "never felt this way about any other girl."_

_However, it might not be Miss Granger's doubtful natural charms that have captured these unfortunate boys' interest._

_"She's really ugly," says Pansy Parkinson, a pretty and vivacious fourth-year student, "but she'd be well up to making a Love Potion, she's quite brainy. I think that's how she's doing it."_

_Love potions are, of course, banned at Hogwarts, and no doubt Albus Dumbledore will want to investigate these claims. In the meantime, Harry Potter's well-wishers must hope that, next time, he bestows his heart on a worthier candidate._

Vi seemed deeply interested as well. Ron glanced at her but met a blank. "Er, well, Harry and I came back from France almost a month ago. We've pretty much been keeping it cool since."

This seemed to satisfy his sister. She turned to Vi and sparked a conversation about potions to repair split-ends. His mother, however, continued to stare at him silently, as if patiently waiting for her son to burst out with something, anything. She knew him too well, Ron knew that too well now. After all, she'd had enough practice already with his brothers, and his Dad hadn't been there much despite their near financial bankruptcy, and his job at the Ministry hadn't helped much.

But his mother was looking at him now like an owl preying. Ron had every reason to fear for his life – well, perhaps he should not exaggerate, but it did seem as such sometimes with her.

While the others were becoming engulfed in their conversations, his Mum simply stood and asked for a hand, of course choosing him of all brothers and sister present. "Ron, help me with the dishes?" And of course Ron hadn't the nerve to refuse – hadn't had it since that particularly scarring incident in the summer before sixth year. Harry and Hermione had joined the Weasleys and everyone else at number twelve, Grimmauld Place for the last half of the summer holidays, when Ron had refused to clean up the table after dinner, pretending that he had to talk to Harry and Hermione about something that could not wait. His headaches had already started, but weren't so painful and were much sparser than later, so it hadn't worried him the least bit then, he'd just been looking for a quiet moment with his friends to talk or hang out in one of the bedrooms. Molly Weasley had whipped out her wand and inexplicably sat him down so fast and hard that his arse had been sore for the next two days. Ron remembered the embarrassment: everyone at the table, friends, family and Aurors included, had become silent and had looked at either one of them for the next twitch or move. As it was, it was his Mum that, surprisingly calmly, said in a very clipped tone, "Ron, help me with these dishes." There had been no questioning her expression; she was furious.

Ron levitated the dishes and piled them into the air before directing them and the utensils over to the kitchen, following them closely behind. His mother was already at the sink, running the water and pouring a gooey liquid in the accumulating water, forming foam. It was then that Ron realised she was doing it the muggle way; she meant business.

"What are you doing?" she asked conversationally… a little too much in fact.

Ron knew his mother well enough to read between the lines. She was definitely picking a bone at him. He decided to play along to spite her. "I'm bringing the dirty dishes in so we can wash them the muggle way," he answered rather sardonically.

Mrs. Weasley smirked to herself though her youngest son didn't see, as her back was facing him. "I see that." She turned around, quickly casting a charm that would take care of the dishes by itself, then sighed. "I also see through that game you're playing."

Ron frowned, confused. "Whatever are you talking about, Mum?"

Molly was staring past Ron at a space above his shoulder, seeing the same scene playing in a past time but for different reasons. "Ron, I may be a wid… an old woman, but I can see. I'm your mother for a reason," she said as though trying to apologise. That wasn't something to apologise for, Ron conceded with himself. "I can see you're both distant, unhappy. When was the last time you –"

"Mum!" Ron exclaimed rather loudly. The noise in the other room died. Ron's face reddened considerately and he rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Come on, Mum, that's… that's private stuff."

Molly did not blink. "Private or not, I'm fairly sure there's nothing to write owls about."

"Mum, please, that's personal."

She raised her eyebrow sharply. "Ronald Bilius Weasley, when was the last time you made love to Vivian? Made love, not just had sex."

Ron's face was crimson by now. "I can't believe you're asking me about –" He interrupted himself at another of her sharp stares. "Oh, I don't know, maybe last week… or last month… Mum! Come on, this is…"

"Strange?" Mrs. Weasley supplied.

Ron grimaced. "Worse. This is wrong. Just… wrong."

His mother sighed wearily. "You're spot on, honey." She had not been smiling through the entire ordeal, but now smiled very wanly. "Look, I'm not here to criticise anyone, least of all you or Vi. She's a very lovely and sweet young woman, but I don't see any chemistry or connection between the both of you. None," she added for emphasis.

Ron sighed, but kept silent. Merlin knew his mother was right, and no amount of soul-searching would prove her wrong.

"I love you, Ron, but if you're not happy today and weren't yesterday, not only will tomorrow be dull, but all the tomorrows after as well." She smiled faintly and reached out to stroke her son's cheek – he was a man now, she had to remind herself. "As your mother, I only want the very best for you."

Ron was rigid in place, almost cringing in fact for the effort it demanded for him to keep himself in check, but was too ashamed to look up into her eyes. "Why are you telling me this now?" he asked very quietly, the sounds from the other room a contrast to the dullness he felt right now.

Molly did not hesitate as she replied, "Because you've been lying to yourself far too long now."

And that was that. The great and esteemed Mrs. Arthur Weasley regained her seat at the Weasley's long wooden table and striked up a conversation with her youngest daughter-in-law about the newest brand of skin products for matured women.

Women. They knew you inside out, especially the ones who'd carried you for nine months.

Harry was grinning when Ron regained his seat next to his best friend. "What did you two talk about in there? I heard you shout."

Ron groaned, stealing a quick glance at Vi. "You don't want to know."

#

"I thought your mother was very enthusiastic today," Vivian said as she hung her robes on the peg in their entrance.

She hadn't been expecting a response, Ron remarked as he closed and locked the door behind them. "I noticed," he replied.

Vivian turned sharply around, and Ron saw a scared, fragile girl instead of her. Dammit, that's my doing, he thought to himself.

"Anything wrong?" he asked finally, walking into their flat and lighting a few lamps. "My mother say anything… disturbing?"

She was still standing in the doorway, eyes like Sickles, regarding his every step in a very owlish way. "No," she rushed out. "Not at all." Then, rubbing her forearm quite uselessly, "She was quite nice actually."

Ron turned around and proceeded to their drawing room, picking up a sealed folder amid several letters – the Ministry owls must have delivered them during their absence – and then sat down quite contentedly. Inside he was a wreck…

Thinking it over, his mother had marked a point: Ron felt nothing, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

"Really…"

Paying no attention to anything anymore, Ron almost did not notice Vi, from the doorway, start to retreat. But he did.

"Wait." She stopped short and then turned to face him. "We need to talk."

Biting her lip, Vi shifted from foot to foot, and then nodded.

Ron sat up, stashing the folder away, and sighed, resting his sweaty palms down on his knees. A few moments later, he closed his eyes and stood up. "Okay. I know I have no right to hurt you, but I think we both know that this… we're going nowhere."

Vi stared past Ron, somewhere over his shoulder. Ron sighed and thought she was brave enough when a tear trickled down her cheek but she stood her ground.

"I haven't been the best husband, and I know you were expecting a little more in return. I'm never there, and when I am I manage to hurt you more than if I wasn't."

She smiled wanly through her tears. "Tell me one thing." Ron nodded, and she heaved in a huge breath. "Why do you always hide out in the office?"

"That's where my…" Files are, he was about to say. No more, he thought decidedly to himself. "I can't stand to lie." Ron breathed in. That felt so good. "And there's my past, too."

Vi bit her lip. Her eyes were smeared with black, but this was a moment where she wasn't about to be the scared little wife. "What about it?"

It was as though she knew, though she couldn't. She never had crossed the boundaries. "It's complicated."

Instantly Ron was hit with that memory.

"It's complicated. I spent all night making sure I'd got the meanings right… Do you want to know?"

"Are you kidding? Of course I do."

"Well, it'll come as a bit of a shock. Don't say I didn't warn you."

Ron grasped courage with both hands. "I'm an Empath. When I met you, it was your feelings I felt for you… as strange as that sounds," he added with haste and a grimace of disgust directed at himself.

Vivian stood frozen. "W–what?"

I never loved you. Crystal clear.

#

Poor lad. I didn't know what hit him until much later, Harry thought as he looked over one of his favourite pictures of the three of them. But Harry was looking at the little Ron in the middle. It was a muggle photograph, and Ron's least favourite, ironically. No matter. The Ron in the photo seemed normal on the surface, but Harry knew that at that time it had been a tough one for his best mate.

Colin had taken the picture a few months before the final battle. Luna had written an article for her father's paper, giving an insight on the Golden Trio's friendship. Ironically, it was read world-wide, but didn't receive a lot of the honour that it should have got. Apparently, the article "lacked the noir effect that people eat right up." This, only to prove Harry's theory: people would keep reading articles about him but disregard the anti-Skeeter approach as a derisory pile of rubbish.

Luna had only gained her success when she covered the War. Being on the front lines as well as being one of the combatants instead of staying in the sidelines, she penned her political views, gave full coverage of the events, and even wrote a detailed diary which, for some comic relief, included some of her far-fetched theories on the future of the wizarding world, her attempts at love and drunken war jokes. Her articles were, if he dared say it, sad, satirical, poignant, comic, and romantic at once. After the War, when things got back to pseudo-normal and shoppes and glamour events sprung back to life, she was awarded with numerous trophies and medals, to all of which she had responded: "I'd thank my pen, but it was the warriors who wrote these lines, not me. They were waiting to write their stories, so I was their portal. And as for my attempts at love, well, I'd like to thank Roger, Thomas…"

Harry smiled with hardly concealed melancholy before muttering "Nox" and exiting his office. He started toward the Ministry's Great Hall, nodded politely to co-workers and other Ministry employees – how strange that, in his youth, he had disdained the Ministry and especially the Minister-in-charge… how the times had changed since the War – before stepping into one of the many chimneys lining one of the entrance walls and saying in a loud, clear voice: "Rosenbaurf Gramarye Libraries, Diagon Alley!" In mere seconds he was stepping out of the gigantic chimney and walking into the greatest library he had ever set foot in – even Hogwarts and Auror Academy's libraries did not rival with Rosenbaurf's.

The first time he'd set foot in a giant library like this, it had been at Auror Academy. Wall after wall of lined books classified in alphabetical order… He'd been lost before even trying to find the one tiny book he'd been searching for. Thankfully, Ron had been at his side and oh-so-familiar with the ways of gigantic wizarding libraries.

Hogwarts's had been a tiny library in comparison, so looking for a book had been quite simple, in reality. You basically thumbed through the shelves or looked through the three cabinets which hid little cards with either the book's title, the author's name, or its category – Potions and History of Magic, amongst others, but also Recreational Reading –, and its location. In other words, the muggle way, as Ron repeatedly reminded him. Not that Harry had known much about muggle libraries anyway. It was his muggle logic that had enforced his muggle behaviour years later: "go straight to those little cabinets, there, with the little block letters on each little drawer, and you'll find your book, guaranteed!"

But AA had been different. Instead of cabinets, Ron had happily dragged Harry straight to a little booklet of sorts. Harry had noticed several of them aligned on the reading tables, all blank save for when a student doubtfully wrote something in it.

"I don't get it. Are we supposed to write our journal in there?" he asked cynically.

Ron laughed and shook his head, muttering something that sounded like "those muggles…" and had picked up the quill next to the booklet. "No. Observe."

And observed he had.

Presently Harry sat at a reading table quite a ways away from a tearful witch who was most certainly reading fifteenth century romance, and picked up the quill at his right, dipped it in ink. "Subject: Evanidus," he wrote at the very top of the first blank page.

"Return: 2 objects," it read, before listing two titles and drawing check boxes at the end of each title.

Harry ignored the first title, _Curative Theories: When The Inner Gramarye Is Threatened_, the only book Hermione had been able to find, but checked the second, _Magimedical History Volume V: Discoveries, Theories, Treatments_. Immediately a book dashed over to Harry, causing him to start as he always did.

He then produced a folder marked with the usual Auror runes and identification, this one containing the disappearance dates. And, counter-checking the dates and their sightings from the weeks leading to their disappearances, his mind wandered again.

Sixth year had probably been one of his worst at Hogwarts. Because he had believed that his best friends had grown apart from him, even believed that something more than friendship had taken them away from him. He had never known whether to feel pained, angered or betrayed. Now he knew. He knew he should not have let it happen to him. He should not have let himself push them away so damn much.

He couldn't have stopped himself. Or, if he'd tried, he would not have succeeded. He had been far too gone. Pain had torn at him, secrets had burned in him like tiny spears; he kept being haunted by dark possibilities, whispers in the dark corners of his mind. Voldemort was planning, and Harry had felt completely helpless as he had watched those who would have understood him, or tried to help him feel strong, as they whisked away. And it had hurt. It had hurt… more than he cared to admit.

Ron had seemed too feeble anyway, and Hermione too preoccupied and worn-out… Scratch that, both of them had seemed preoccupied. Harry remembered the times he woke up on weekend mornings to find them both sleeping soundly still and a tangle of fatigued limbs, sometimes well past mid day.

Can't say as I was too happy… Harry admitted to himself, getting back to his book and straying again nonetheless.

He hadn't tried very hard to stay closer to them. At that time brooding had seemed the better settlement. So he'd brooded, and every time he'd tried to shake some sense into his mate – he was failing miserably, after all – there would be another voice:

"Please, leave him alone," Hermione pleaded, pushing Harry away. Always away. Never in the know. Harry was getting sick of their fucking secret – why couldn't they tell him, of all bloody best friends in the world… Why not him? "He's going through so much lately," she added quietly.

Ron turned to face him before entering their NEWT Charms class. He needn't to say anything, his eyes spoke of their sleep deprivation – why? He closed his curtains around his four-poster well before Harry some nights.

Then Ron walked into the classroom and Hermione followed suit. They sat huddled together – probably talking privately about him, of course – while Harry sat next to Seamus, somehow wishing that Neville were here. At least the bloke had a small understanding of what Harry had had to go through in the past. But Neville had only managed to get three O's last year: Herbology, Defence Against the Dark Arts – Harry was so proud of the poor chap – and Care of Magical Creatures.

Ron had looked downright delirious on most days. Although he now very seldom spoke about his "ability", as quoted by Ron himself, Harry suspected that Ron had had hallucinations at the time.

It was very unclear to Harry was an Empath's capabilities were. Upon living the War next to Ron, he had to admit that they were greatly dangerous and not to be taken lightly. All in all, battling and risks of getting killed aside, Ron had risked his life by simply joining Harry et al on the front lines and killing adversaries.

But he hadn't known that until the very middle of seventh year, when he and Hermione and Ron had cast their grudges aside to become stronger together for the impending war and create a much more proactive Dumbledore's Army. He'd thought Ron to be dim, had believed their professors when they'd picked at Ron for his apparent stupidity. He shouldn't have. Look where he is now, that dim boy… Ron was just as intelligent and cunning an Auror as Harry was, if not even better than he was… but it was a wonder that Ron actually passed his NEWTs with outstanding marks. Just how much had Hermione helped him?


	4. Battlefield of the Avenging, part I

**Chapter Three: War Zone: Battlefield of the Avenging**

**_Chapter three, part I_**

When Ron woke up, he was dressed the same as he had the day before, and the day before that, and for many days to come, he reckoned. When he woke up it was always a dreary one. For many months now he didn't care, though, that he slept poorly, that he didn't eat well, that his eyes were sunken deep, or that the smell of sweat followed him everywhere he went.

It was the blood he cared for. The blood that had been shed. They had to pay. All of them, those bastards.

Harry was already up. As always he wasn't exactly there, in the present. Ron had enough mind to leave him to himself, so he sat up and reached for a pan to put on the small fire that hadn't been tended to during the night – Ron reckoned that Harry had started it again this morning upon waking up. Cracking some eggs and stirring them in the pan, he then gathered a handful of dried oatmeal into a small cracked pot and poured some water in it, displaying it atop a rock surrounding the pitiful fire. With the right spell, though, the meal would be ready in no time.

"I ate."

It was too late. Ron looked up as Harry spoke, and shrugged, muttering a fire starter charm.

"I ate."

"And I heard you." Silence. "Don't care. I could use the food."

The drop curtain fell sideways, letting in a ray of bleary morning sunshine – why did it have to be so dark these days? – and revealing Hermione.

"Hi. Can I come in?" she asked in her white robes – robes that were ample enough to allow elbow movement. "I heard you talking."

Ron looked at Harry's brooding figure and rolled his eyes, then gestured for her to sit before the fire with him. "Sure. Eaten yet? Was about to make some eggs and porridge."

"Umm, sure." She glanced uncertainly at Harry before smiling wanly at Ron. The War was making her skin too white and papery, with her hollow eyes and tired lines. Even her robes made her look dreary. And that was saying something.

Harry stood up hastily then looked at them as if he'd just registered his earlier behaviour. Now he looked at them apologetically. "Sorry. I'm just going to take a walk out there and see if I can help anyone around." He walked out with a quick step.

When Harry was out of sight and earshot, Ron drew out a breath, but not because of Harry's departure. Hermione tried to smile, but it came out as a shy, tired one. "Everything all right? How's the infirmary holding up?"

Hermione poured herself some porridge and played with her spoon in the mushy substance. Her locks, now held back in a tight bun in comparison to when they had been in Hogwarts, were dull and dry. "I don't know, everything's so uncertain, and I knew it was going to be that way when I joined the MMMI (moving magimedical infirmary). But I never wanted to believe that I was going to see so much sufferance and so many deaths as I've seen in the last couple of months. It's insane, I know, I should be over it by now, but I'm not." She sighed, looking up at once into Ron's stormy eyes. Hugging herself she said, "I just wish this war could swallow itself whole and be gone."

"Hermione," Ron said straightforwardly, "you have got to see it the way most of us do."

"I know… it's the Final Battle. It's been prophesied. But you've seen Harry. Even he's dreary." She sighed. "And I know you've lost more than your share in this…" She trailed off at his sunken expression and looked down at her hands, suddenly not so hungry anymore. "I probably shouldn't have brought this up."

Ron shook his head indulgently. "No, no, it's all right." And then the silence reigned again. Ron stared at the flapping drop that served as the door to his and Harry's tent, then looked at the fire. "And for what it's worth, I'm so glad you decided to come after all."

"They needed all the help they could get. I was there."

Ron's gaze held hers in an enthralling trance. "I needed someone who'd known all along."

Hermione knew he was talking about his empathy. "You needed someone who understood… someone who could help you along."

His expression held deep respect and devotion, something that usually scared Hermione to death. Truth be told, she was still a little uneasy when she met his eyes when he was like this. But she held his gaze nonetheless, determined to let show that she wasn't moved by him.

"How are you holding up?" she asked. "With the empathy, I mean."

Ron's eyes turned gloomy, always a bad sign." God, you know, it kills me. Every time I… I'm holding their gazes or just touching them, they're dying and it kills me. I see…" Interrupting himself, he looked up and swallowed around his dry throat.

Hermione smiled indulgently and moved behind him to hook her arms around his waist and nuzzle her nose in the crook of his shoulder, the musk of war reaching her nostrils.

"I see their fears, it's like being connected to their thoughts. It's so strange, and…" Trailing off, he interrupted himself again. No, he couldn't. Never could he tell her how it felt to be at the brink of death himself. And it wouldn't do to scare her now when he'd probed so much to have her understand that he needed to kill. If not for himself, then for…

"And?" she asked in a tense voice. She knew what was coming, hated to see him so crushed and torn. Without a thought she bit her lip, her fingers tightening on his shoulders as she watched his whole body stiffen beneath her fingertips.

Ron groaned miserably after a few beats, then leaned forward until his elbows could rest upon his knees. "I don't know, Hermione." Looking back over his shoulder at his kneeling friend, he tossed her a sketch of a smile, attempting to lighten the atmosphere. "Well, now we have the proof that I am a wreck."

Seeing past his mask, Hermione scooted sideways and held his eyes. She smiled tentatively, then raised her hand to his unkempt, greasy hair. "No, I think I finally have the proof that you have feelings, you old fool."

That made him crack a real smile. "Wait till we get those bastards. I might start bawling a river when they die."

Hermione's smile faltered. He knew where she stood with the War and winced.

"Yeah, sorry. Didn't mean to sound like a craving bloodsucker."

She shook her head like she might a particularly dusty book. "No. It's all right. I hear it everyday. Became routine, I guess."

A moment of silence passed between them, during which Ron debated with his inner self whether or not he should ask Hermione to resume the daily exercises they'd discontinued a month or two ago.

Finally his rational side took the reins, as she was about to filter outside. "Hang on." At her slight turn toward him, he felt a more confidence in asking her. "I think I need those sessions again." And he trusted her more than anyone else he knew with that. Including Harry.

Biting her lip at the happy tug of her heart, Hermione crawled back into the tent and sat down at the spot she'd just vacated. "Okay," she said, and Ron felt nothing but the comforting veil of trust that she'd been able to weave around them through the last three years.

Facing her, he blanked out his mind, felt nothing, nothing at all but the humming of his heart and his fingertips twined in hers in a matter of intense connection – something they'd established long ago.

He heard her regular intake of breath, knew she was digging through her memories when he saw her eyes close, that little line on her forehead telling him she wasn't taking this task lightly – good, he thought, I need the practice anyway.

And then it was there. Her sharp hiss, her nails digging in his hands, her moans and whimpers as she remembered her most terrifying fears and communicated them to him.

Ron knew his task. Relieve yourself first, disconnect, disconnect. Break it before it consumes you.

The first few times Ron had enjoyed the sharp stab of pain. A bit of a masochist? he'd then asked himself. But it wasn't that. It had been drunken discovery.

Now Ron didn't dwell and hang back for the show. Hermione's eyes opened, terrified. Her body trembled; a cold sweat had broken out all over her. Quick, quick, he had to act in a matter of seconds, no, now. Before he could be drawn into the illusion, however real it looked. Real situations couldn't be spared.

Block out, block out. Ron forced himself to put up the barrier. It was always harder to put it up than to break it, he conceded as he felt his own body shake and cover with sweat and as he felt the beginnings of a migraine at the intrusion.

"Come on, Ron," Hermione gritted out between sharp intakes of breath. "You can do it, I know you can." Squeezing his shoulders harder at the horrifying pictures playing in her head – the mangled bodies, the pain, the crying, the rotting smells, the blood, the cold, hard body, it was all so much, and yet there came more now – she willed him to pull her out. "Get me out, you know you can."

Ron felt the searing pain on his shoulder, but it was nothing next to hers. Pulling her to him – pushing her away was just too damn easy and he'd already mastered it to an art – he let her forehead touch his. He knew he'd deliberately taken the tough route, but damn it, he was going to get it down if it reduced him to nothing.

Hermione felt the tears coming now. "Come on, Ron. Get me out." I can't hold much longer.

Damn it. Ron squeezed his eyes shut tight and, in a moment foul numbness, felt the connection give way finally.

When he opened his eyes, staring into Hermione's tear-stained face and smiling triumphantly, Hermione was smiling drunkenly as well.

"I did it."

"You're an idiot, Ronald Weasley." She pushed him away sharply at arm's length.

"I did it." Ron was too happy to care about anything else revolving around him. It had been weeks since he'd practised and it felt too good to be diminished so fast.

Hermione's heart warmed considerably as she looked at his reaction. Then her arms laced around him and she felt Ron's stubby cheek rub her smooth one. "You did it," she whispered softly.

#

"Harry! Harry!"

Looking up sharply – he'd been staring at his wand for a half hour now – Harry saw Luna, cape riding in the air as she ran to him, her ragged messenger bag shouldered – he suspected she'd been writing again – and her broomstick in one hand. Her wand was holstered at her ribcage, and her eyes were wild. As she approached still, Harry stood up from the little mound he'd been sitting on.

"Harry, we'd better round up everyone. We've got to move out of here, it's too dangerous," Luna wheezed out between sharp gulps of air.

Harry stared at her hard. "They're coming?"

She only nodded. "I saw the Dark Mark when I was… my article," she said, tugging at his arm as she started running again toward camp. "Seamus and everyone," she panted. "I think their camp was ravaged."

Harry's nerves made a flip. "Shit. Did you see anyone?"

She knew he was asking if there had been survivors, casualties, anyone alive. Silence as they ran, and she stared sidelong at Harry's stormy eyes. "I wasn't close enough." Panting, she strained to keep up with Harry's distressed run. "I don't know, Harry."

They reached camp and shook it out, as Harry barked out orders. When he saw Ron come out fully prepared, wand in holster, broomstick in hand and clasping his cape over his war outfit, he marched off toward him just as Hermione pushed over the curtain, a sheen of sweat on her face but powerful nonetheless.

"Hey there, mate. Feeling all right today?"

Ron nodded, looking back at Hermione as she edge toward the small group of Healers and nurses. "I'm feeling ace."

Harry was about to reply when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Luna.

"We should go, Harry. We have the advantage of the surprise."

Thirty-nine casualties, two dead. When the Death Eaters fled that day, Harry considered themselves in sweet advantage.

#

Vivian O'Sullivan paused in her footsteps, looking around at their… his bedroom. Splashes of rich reds and solid oak-tree furniture adorned the warm intimate space. Or, it could have been intimate.

He'd come out from next to nothing, she realised not for the first time. They all had, all of his family. Come out from poverty with pride and even more pride in their past.

She fingered the wool throw that was a vestige of his history. Molly had made it. And he'd kept it reverently even though he'd grumbled now and then about how it clashed with his belongings. He could have bought an expensive throw to replace the old with the new, but everything in the flat was a tribute to the old… mismatched with rich textures. She supposed the style reflected the person. But she didn't know. She'd never known the person.

She'd only slept in his bed to keep up the appearances and serve the principles that tied them, however loosely they were. Didn't regret a minute of it. Even though it had probably meant nothing to him. At least not really.

Breathing in the scents of her bearings, she folded her cashmere sweater and dropped it onto the rest in the trunk. This had been hers since the Hogwarts days. The letters 'VO' were a little faded in the leather but on the whole the trunk had kept its charm and touch. It had followed her in all of her new beginnings. This one was no exception. And, even though there were tears staining her cheeks, she was glad to leave the circus, strangely.

"You know, you can hurl a punch at my jaw if you feel like it."

The voice startled her, but she didn't recoil. If anything, she thought, him telling her the truth had finally made her feel infinitely better than if he had thrown her out or pretended a couple more nights or years. And the light humour his voice held now was a healing bandage to her wounds. "No," she said, smiling a bit over her shoulder, "imagining worse things is much more rewarding."

She was joking. Strange, he thought startlingly, he'd never heard her joking, much less paid attention to her when she did. "So you're leaving then?" he asked, leaning a shoulder lazily on the doorframe.

There was kindness in him, she'd always known. He wore his heart on his sleeve when he put his head to it. But she hadn't experienced it first-hand since the wedding. And even before that it had been strained. She made a flourish around the room with her hands. "As you can see." Then she turned around and smiled genuinely. "Thanks."

He jerked, surprised. "Whatever for?"

Her smile lightened. "I don't blame you, you know. I know I should, but I just can't." She shrugged. "I guess I've always known you were a good human being, so I never placed the blame on you."

Ron interrupted her with a raise of his hand, head bowed as if she'd struck hard. "Please, don't go there."

"No," she said eloquently. "I've seen you with your family. You try to act as detached as you are… were with me, but you're just too connected to them. And Harry, well, he's like a long lost brother to you, and your family includes him in anything even when he's all humble and refuses to take part in family activities. He's your rock, Ron. And me, well, everyone's proper with me, I guess, but there's just not enough to build a strong connection." She turned back, and was surprised to find she had had no jealous venom coursing through her veins like she'd thought she would.

Ron ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "I guess you're right."

She chuckled. "What do you know, I'm always right," she drawled.

He finally cracked a full smile. Vivian O'Sullivan was just so full of surprises today. "So I guess you've been watching. You should have made Slytherin."

"You bet I have," she said before heaving her trunk off the bed. As she passed him, she magicked her trunk to have it follow her, but she stood next to him. Then she looked up, studying his face and biting her lips. "Truth?" she said finally. Ron nodded. "You hurt me, and I think that'll leave wounds. But," and here she bit her lip again, "I think it's better that we stop fooling ourselves – that I stop fooling myself. You're a great man, Ron, and I'll be glad to just… be there if you ever need someone."

Ron was speechless; if he'd tried to talk right then idiocies would have fallen out of it instead of the 'thank you' he wanted to say. But his throat was just too damn constricted.

Vivian shifted once, nervously, then muttered, "I guess I should go now. I'll come and get the rest when I can."

Ron was still frozen to the spot when he heard the front door shut gently.

#

The door slammed shut behind Hermione. Shaking the rain off her hair and robes, she stared at her reflection in the small round mirror shaped in a sun and moon and wrung the rain from her hair – she could have used the spell, but felt like being cosy tonight. Then she hung her robes and looked toward the drawing room, all alight despite no one being there. But she looked down at the rug on the entrance floor, and there were his boots, thrown carelessly and scattered over it.

He's back awfully early…

Hermione carefully creeped toward the drawing room, where a few giggles could be heard over the din of the television. When she reached the drawing room, she very nearly collided with the TV set that was on and playing a rerun of Bob and Margaret. The image was just too much, and she hadn't been prepared for the show that was instead playing before her very eyes.

Ted slid off the couch and to the floor, fits of giggles racking his body and the bottle of Thumbsucker from the Magic Hat Brewing Company swaying in his hand and making a right mess on the carpet. "Hi there, didn't hear yeh come in… I'd love to kick Margaret's arse. But she's so funny. Bob's even better… Do you know how sexy you look in a teddy? I been thinkin' about it," he slurred, wriggling his eyebrows suggestively. "What say you, Her… Herme… Herni… Herminy… you?"

Hermione yanked him up by the shirt lapel and slugged him across the face with not a little strength.

"OW! Ferk, Jesus, wha'sat for?"

Hermione stared Ted hard in the eye even as he squinted through his foggy sight. "You deserved every sting of this. I'm not even going to ask why I'm coming home to a drunk flatmate, but I am going to ask you to leave this instant," she breathed dangerously in his face.

She saw him struggle with his train of thought. "Wha'? But I live here! What the hell crapped in your arse today?"

Hermione shot Ted a warning look before he could get any smarter. "First," she growled, "I come home and expect you to be at word still ("– I got sacked."). Second, I see you in this state, and to make matters worse the carpet is ruined. Last, I don't see anything funny in this bloody cartoon."

He raised his head limply and attempted a grin. "It's the noses, you know… really large." He laughed a bit to himself, the quietened out, though giggles still shook him from time to time. "I'm sorry for the mess. I'll clean up."

She raised her hand to stop him a moment. "Hang on."

He sighed with annoyance, thinking she was sure to start lecturing him. "What?"

"Don't get smart with me, Wentworth. Alcohol-induced imbecility disgusts me…"

He snorted a bit. "Everyone says that. I even say that… Your point?"

Hermione wasn't sure if it was the alcohol that was making him so cross, but she frowned and raised her voice as she advanced on him. "My point? Just how bloody gone are you, Ted? You're a Ministry employee – or was one anyway – for God's sake. Just how wrong does the picture look to you: your breath smells, you're giggling madly to yourself about a stupid cartoon show, and you're completely screwed up?" She heaved in a full breath and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Get out, Ted, just get out. I thought you were better than that."

Ted shot up suddenly, all ebriety at least gone for the moment. "Why the ruddy hell are you like this? Why the hell am I such a bad person all of a sudden?" He looked a little less out of it anyway, and Hermione was afraid he was going to lash at her.

Hermione had to admit that this was a tough one to answer quite as directly as it had been asked. "Because… dammit, Ted, I've seen what it can do to people."

Ted chortled derisively in her face. "What, during the War?"

Hermione frowned and jutted out her chin. This was something she could defend and quite well. "As a matter of fact, yes, during the War to Voldemort." She felt satisfaction in seeing that Ted shuddered at the name of the ancient nemesis.

Ted shook his head, swirling the beer in his bottle to keep his hands from shaking before drinking from it. "Yes, tell me about your problems with the War, dearie…" he said before taking another swig.

Hermione was this close to being tempted to strike again. "Look," she breathed heavily, letting all the venom she'd held in check before out of her system, "just because you were too bloody scared to join, doesn't mean you can be insolent to the rest of us who helped defend your cause, Ted. It's your cause as well as mine and Harry's and everyone else's."

Ted dutifully kept his eyes trained on a lone beauty spot hidden in Hermione's eyebrows. "Yeah, yeah, yacketa, yacketyick. Get over it," he grunted, his voice just barely cracking at the last syllable.

Hermione felt the venom boil in her veins. She'd have loved to hex him into a teapot to put on the fire. "The least you could do is be grateful that you're still alive." Storming away to pace the middle of the drawing room, she lashed out finally, "The War was so awful I think you'd still be retching or at the very least in St-Mungo's mental department after seeing all the horrors that I've seen.

"The alcohol made us all forget, but someone actually went to their death after having had too much to drink. Ran away to find the Death Eaters who took away his little sister, and came back dead on a stretcher…

"Do you know how that feels? To feel responsible somehow? Because someone just wanted to forget? No, I guess you don't. Just… get the hell out of here," she finished weakly.

Ted laughed maniacally. "Won't you feel responsible for me?"

Hermione shook her head slowly, groaning, then pulled him up roughly and pushed him out of the drawing room. Stopping at the entrance, she yanked his bottle out of his hands. "No, I won't, because you're prat. You lost your job, Merlin knows how or why, and you're here feeling sorry for yourself," she said with finality before throwing him out.

She heaved in a huge breath, slamming the door in his face, and slid to the floor as images from the War played before her eyes. "People drank during the War, to forget. To forget that they'd lost someone close to them."

#

Luna barged in, and Hermione knew immediately that the night wasn't over by a mile. Already Luna was raging, pushing away the maginurses trying desperately to restrain her. "Where is he, Hermione?" she cried, wriggling away sharply and coming to Hermione in the middle of the room full of sleeping or brooding casualties. "Where is he?" she implored her again.

Hermione wasn't sure at first whom it was she was talking about. And then a face loomed from her memories. She found right then that she was uncomfortable before this passionate woman. "Bran?" she asked a tiny mouse voice, hating herself already for the woman's pain.

Luna stopped fighting the nurses who'd come forth and grabbed her again, and looked at Hermione in her white smock, suddenly powerless but for this rage tearing at her heart. Looking into her eyes, Luna saw the pity, and it was enough to know… She broke down and her eyes were welling up, she couldn't help it. It had been so long since she'd last cried, she was surprised she remembered how to. And this wasn't helping. "Please, please tell me he's alive," she said, hugging herself in her sodden combat clothes.

Hermione sighed to herself then – how many more dead? she wondered – and gathered her friend in her arms. "I'm sorry."

Luna's tears were soaking Hermione's clothes, but the next instant she started pounding her fists all over Hermione's body and Hermione knew there would be bruises in the morning.

Hermione stopped the nurses from pulling Luna away.

"Bring him back!" she was crying as something cracked greatly in the distance – battlegrounds. "You can bring him back! … Bran was the best goddamn man on this stupid planet. You didn't do enough. Damn you, damn you!" Her sobs shook her then, and she pounded again, stronger still though she was weakening.

"Doctor? Should we –"

Hermione shook her head. "Go away. Number three's waking up."

Finally tired, Luna cried and cried, until Hermione lay her down on a cot and made her drink a Sleeping potion. The next morning early, Luna was drinking her loss by the dying fire.

#

Out of strength finally, Hermione Disapparated, leaving a mess in her wake.

#

Hermione wiped the tears from her eyes and pushed into Rosenbaurf's welcoming warmth and scents. She had to change her thoughts. She thought she'd come to the right place. For weeks now she'd been working non-stop on the same case. Evanidus… she thought as she sat down at one of the long tables. She hadn't actually brought the folder with her, but she remembered every single important detail.

"Why does it affect men?" she whispered to herself in the near-empty library.

It was a known fact within the magical community that men generally had an equal amount of magic in them – with few exceptions of course.

Hermione had grown up in the muggle world, where magic was non-existent and 'invented' by storytellers to teach morals or children's tales. Witches existed for All Hallows Eve, and in the History of Britain the pagans and wise women as well as the true witches of the world she learned about at the age of eleven were persecuted and burned at the stake for practising witchcraft in some, and healing in others.

Wizards were omitted for the simple reason that they did not exist in muggle stories. Tales were told, but they were very rare. The famous Merlin had used a lot of ink, but the stories told about him in the muggle world paled in comparison to what Hermione had learned in History of Magic and Charms at Hogwarts.

These famous wizards were often famous in Celtic myths and legends because they'd had the Mx-gene… the mage gene. Hermione knew a lot more about that gene since seventh year, before the world as she knew it then turned over its axis…

Hermione had to shake her head to come back on track.

There was so little that she knew about the Evanidus. She knew when it had been invented and why, and how it had all begun. But who knew if the disease hadn't been wiping other people from the face of the earth since or if it had been vanquished for good the first time around. Who knew if the recipe hadn't been waiting somewhere for someone truly twisted to make use of it?

The most important to know, though, was 'Who had done it this time?' and, of course, 'How did it travel?'

Hermione suddenly blinked, staring at someone a few ways away pour themselves a glass and bring it to their lips.

It's the ocean.

#

Apparating home to her Oxford flat, Hermione was a wreck of glee. She paused in her bedroom, them, having noticed a change… a huge change: Ted's things were gone.

Hermione slowly circled the room, shocked still. It had been months now since she'd been truly alone by herself. Well, you did bring it upon yourself, Granger. Not like you held him back. Not like you cared, really.

Still a bit astonished, she directed herself toward the adjoined bathroom and stepped into the shower bath.

When she arrived at the Ministry of Magic a good hour later, Hermione was fresh and felt fresh. Folder under the armpit, she quickly stepped into the lift after depositing her wand to the Ministry's front desk. It merely shook and rattled on its way to the second level, her destination.

"Harry Potter," she panted to the Auror Headquarters' desk lady, who looked up and boredly pointed a freshly filed finger to the left. "Harry!" Hermione cried when she spotted him heading to a giant filing cabinet.

Harry jumped and turned around, a bit surprised to find his old friend flitting past the islands formed by the scattered desks. He dazedly lifted the folder he was holding in his hand when Hermione finally caught up. "I was just about to file these…" he said a bit lamely, then frowned. "Er, what are you doing here? – not that it isn't appreciated or anything…"

Hermione beamed up at him and grabbed him by the sleeve of his robes. As they walked and she dragged him, "See, I was at the library when it just clicked. It's been literally years since this has happened to me – I usually go by the protocol and provide proofs and whatnot before actually deciding that I know what I have to do – so at first I didn't believe it, but it just made sense, you know?"

They arrived at Harry's office. He whirled around, frowning still. "Wait, are you talking about the Evanidus case?" At her excited nod, he made round Sickle-sized eyes. "Have you had any sleep?"

Hermione was silent, then soberly shrugged. "That's not the point, Harry. I found –"

"Like hell it isn't," Harry said. He dropped into his chair, squinted into Hermione's eyes with a bit of a dangerous edge. "Sit."

Hermione sighed. "Look, Harry, I –"

When Harry raised an adamant eyebrow, she complied, groaning a bit. This was the Auror in him speaking, she realised a bit too late.

"I've been working here long enough to recognise what a person's facial traits tell. Actually, I excelled at Interrogation, Deception & Honesty at the Academy… Everyone thinks that Auror work is all about excelling at defensive magic and locking up the bad guys, but… it's just like the muggle stuff; we're just like the muggle police, but strangely enough we work our doughnuts a little harder."

Harry leaned forward to spy Hermione's reaction. Her eye twitched. "Look, Hermione," he said, softening, "I know when something's wrong… especially when it's my best friends… even thought we've been out of touch for so long."

He sighed, then leaned back into his chair and crossed his hands behind his head. "I'm good, Hermione, so tell me why you were up all night working this out when you should have been home and asleep like the sanest of us."

Hermione swallowed the dryness in her throat away. She hadn't known he was that good. The little bit of Auror lessons he'd got from Tonks and Shacklebolt just before the War had been just enough to teach him the rudiments of advanced defensive spells and defensive fighting à la muggle way. She now had to remind herself that he'd learned much more at Auror Academy, that he was a junior now, and that he was probably headed toward a very successful career considering his leadership during the War.

Hermione didn't want to look at him, knew he was going to make her lose her face. She chewed her cheek, then chanced a glance… and she couldn't hold the tears in any longer. "I'm such a mess… and I never even loved him."

#

Harry pushed his way inside his Chief's office. He knew he was probably looking at making a very long double shift later, but damn it he wasn't about to get interrupted when his friend needed him right now.

"Potter," Chief Hardtman acknowledged him stiffly from behind his massive desk.

Harry quickly explained the situation to Hardtman, left his office with an agreement and took Hermione to his flat ("You're not leaving until you tell me everything.").

Harry sat Hermione down on the couch, cleaned the dirty tea table of the curry meal from the night before, and pace the drawing room's grubby floor, scattered Old Ogden's everywhere, when Hermione was done with her story.

"You met him at a charity party?" he asked neutrally.

Hermione nodded cautiously. "For St-Mungo's Children Care wing. I'd just done a research on the Chalimera and I was a guest; his department had donated money for the children infected with shapeshifting and he was a guest of honour. We met, discussed each other's subject, and kept in contact."

"Keep in contact…" Harry rolled that over in his mind. "So you didn't date."

"No, we never did."

Harry paused in his footsteps, frowning doubtfully. "Then how did he end up moving into your flat? And you –"

Hermione threw up her hands, feeling foolish herself now that someone else was telling her. "Yes, I know, but it just happened. I mean, one day I called him to congratulate him on something the papers said, and he just Apparated to my flat, and… you know, it happened. I questioned it myself, but it didn't feel right nor wrong, so I just left it alone and one day he moved in and that was that."

Harry's face was distorted in sheer incredulity. "What the hell… what the hell were you thinking?"

"I don't know, Harry! All I know is that when I came back home last night, I was cheerful. I'd walked in the snow instead of Apparating straight home, it felt great because I love long walks in the snow."

Harry grinned. "I know."

Hermione smiled back, remembering long walks around the lake, and then it faded. "So I came in and Ted was drunk. I just lost it – I went barmy. I kicked him out and felt much better having finally done that, and that's when I realised it didn't matter… I didn't care that I'd done that."

Harry snorted then laughed and gathered his friend in his arms. "I should hope so. Do you know that you may just have lost two months of precious happiness?"

Hermione bit her lip anxiously. "Didn't think of it that way… Do you think I'm stupid for all that?"

Harry chuckled merrily. "And more." He soundly kissed her temple. "I'm only kidding. You're the brightest witch of your age, or didn't you know? … You're just confused, I guess." He rolled his eyes, thinking of his other best friend. God knew… "Happens to the best of us."

Hermione smiled on Harry's chest and then pushed away at arm's length. "Thank you. I feel much better having told someone."

Harry grinned and then trotted to the small kitchenette. "I'm making up for lost time, I guess." He shrugged before coming back with a beer. At her slightly uneasy glance, he raised the bottle and cocked an eyebrow. "Making you nervous?" he asked with a twinge of concern.

Hermione quickly shrugged and felt foolish all over again. "No, no. It just reminds me of the War. Nothing bad, really. I guess I was only irritated at Ted because I knew he didn't give a damn about it."

Harry sighed and sat on the couch, poking her arm. "Plus, you know I'm not a drunk fool." He patted the space next to him and set the bottle down on the tea table, reaching for the Evanidus folder. "Okay, so tell me what you learned."

"Everything." Harry frowned up at her. It had taken Ron and himself so long that they'd given up; surely it couldn't have taken her less than two weeks' work. "Really," she assured him. "I don't know for a fact that it was completely vanquished the first time around, but this time I know why our victims caught the disease, or rather where.

"It's the water cleansing establishments in that area. See, there must be a small dosage still left in the ocean from the first time around, but it's such a small percentage that no one's caught it and disappeared in centuries before now. Someone must have either got hold of the original recipe, or some unsuspecting muggle chemist or cracked potion-maker re-created it after studying the remains from the ocean."

Harry scratched his temples. This was getting way too complicated. "Do you this it could be linked to the fraud affair with the French Ministry? as a means to get whatever done?"

Hermione sighed thoughtfully. "If your baron vampire decided to pour more acid in the already bleeding wounds, then it's entirely plausible."

Harry stood up instantly. "I've to call Ron."

#

Ron was a total mess. The worst really was that he knew it. He knew it even before grabbing his wand off his unmade bed, before Disapparating and before knocking on Harry's painted door.

It wasn't even that Vi'd left. Well, a part of him still allowed for him to feel like shite about the whole thing… who could blame her, really? He was to blame and he bloody sodding well knew it.

It wasn't that. It was that she'd made him re-think the meaning of his secrecy.

He knew it had been wrong from the beginning to keep hiding out in his office, but he also knew that he was doing her a huge favour by doing so. This way, he wasn't constantly lying for her or channelling anything that might have deceived her in the end.

What's more, he had completely fucked up their lives by lying to both of them instead. But he'd kept himself from hurting her even more than he did when he finally came out of his hiding.

There were rolls and rolls of parchments stacked amongst thick volumes and various instruments in the large library that took up the whole of one wall. He liked to think of his office as a timeless space. The place smelled of dust, time, and, strangely, of pears, all of them very familiar fragrances.

He liked to go there to think, to plan detailed Auror ambushes and missions, to read. Harry had come in with him on more than one occasion, and had called Ron's office a "hermit's haven". He couldn't really disagree; one could have lived in there with everything he or she needed. There was plenty of food stored in a small muggle-made fridge, a small-adjoined bathroom, and the cosy stuffed recliner where he usually read was comfortable enough to sleep in.

His most prized possessions, however, were the translated manuscript written in Hermione's clean handwriting and the Pensieve stacked away on one of the lower shelves in his library, a gift from his father before he… after becoming Minister for Magic.

Ron knocked away again when no one answered. Strange. Harry was quick to charm the door open when he knew it was Ron. Then he heard someone's quick footsteps in the hall, the door unlock, and suddenly he was face to face with Hermione.

She immediately startled. "We weren't expecting you quite so fast. Harry said you might have to pick up some things at the Ministry."

Ron held up the Auror files. "I was working on them at home just now."

Hermione frowned, bewildered. "You weren't at work?" she asked inquisitively.

Ron pushed past her, past the door, trying to ignore her question, but he couldn't; instead he evaded. "Let's just say some things came up yesterday."

Hermione sighed, still at the doorway, though she had closed the door. "You don't look too good for wear either," she said wistfully.

Ron softened at her expression. She was smiling a bit, so he smiled back. "I won't ask if you don't, but I'll reserve the right to ask later."

She chuckled, obviously past her torment. Good, he thought. He could deal with all of it later. "Where's Harry? He said it was some urgent matter." Then he did a double take. "Hang on, what are you doing here?"

Hermione laughed and shook her head briskly. "Oh boy, obviously Harry forgot to tell you the basics… I found some interesting things about the Evanidus."

Harry came in at that precise moment, setting a large brown paper bag on the tea table and producing curry dishes. "Owl delivery. Takeout. Eat," he commanded, immediately plunging to stuff his mouth.

Hermione and Ron soon followed, but not before giving each other a very gobsmacked look. And then the explanations and deliberations began.

"But how do we know it's the same disease?" Ron asked around a mouthful. "Isn't there some sort of formula or recipe that we could lie back on?"

Hermione coughed and carefully dug out a sheaf of papers after licking the food off her fingers. "Maybe," she said elusively. "While I was at the library last night I called one of my friends at Auldenberk's labs. He ran some tests on the samples you gave me from the water cleansing establishments in Nice and the neighbouring cities, and we're waiting for the results.

"I also called a potion maker there, and he's contacting people around the continent to ask about the original formula, although, if my lab friend's hypothesis is correct, we might be able to get a percentage of the remains and run tests and figure out the formula ourselves."

Ron was screwing up his face so much he thought his skin might crack from the effort. Then he turned to Harry. "Did any of this gibberish make any sense to you?"

Harry sipped a bit of water. "Actually, I think I understand that we're close to getting somewhere."

Ron snorted. "I got that! It was the part about the samples and tests and formulas that got me all screwed up. And I mean that in the nicest possible way, of course."

Hermione rolled her eyes amiably, keeping her usually snarky remarks to herself. "So. What do we do now?" she asked, watching the men intently.

Harry sighed, glancing at Ron, who mirrored his action just then. "We go back to where it all began."

Hermione frowned, her confusion showing through. "What do you mean?" And then it dawned on her, crystal clear. "You're going back to France," she said, and the two Aurors nodded grimly, their eyes turning dull all of a sudden. There was a heavy silence then, so thick and palpable that the three of them believed they would suffocate from it. "You know," Hermione said finally, "I could go with you. I can call my boss and tell him –"

"No." Hermione raised her eyes sharply to Ron's, which were hard and stormy.

Harry whirled on him, adamant as well. "Are you insane? She knows more about this disease than we probably ever will!"

Hermione chimed in: "It's not like it has the potential of affecting me. You're both more at risk than me," she said imploringly. "I can run the tests while you worry about finding this vampire lord of yours."

Ron stood up as if a bee had stung him hard. "Do you have any idea how dangerous it is down there?" He whirled around on Harry. "Give me a hand here. We both know she has absolutely no business lurking around there."

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose, like he was about to get a headache. "I think you're right, Ron, but…" He paused to give Hermione a warning glance before she could cut him off. "I also believe that Hermione has every right in the world to follow us. She's the reason we've picked up again on this case, remember? Without her, we're likely to hit a dead end again and lose more people down the road."

Ron closed his eyes, deliberating this, and finally threw up his hands defeatedly. His mate was right, he had to admit, but it didn't mean he liked the idea of bringing Hermione along any more than he did before. "Okay, okay! You win, but you're going to have to find a way to have her protected while we're gone, because I don't really trust the ministry guys they flanked us with last time. Some translators they were, too." He huffed and crossed him arms defiantly over his chest, staring pointedly at Harry and Hermione, alternatively.

Even Rémi hadn't liked them, and that's telling something, Ron thought gloomily.

Hermione was bright-eyed when he raised his eyes again to hers. And he felt her gratefulness hitting him full-force without his even being able to prepare himself for the shock. Thank you, he could almost hear her say. And Ron, right then, felt weak, because he knew he never was able to hold her back when she was this hard- and hot-headed. Boy, did he know…

#

Ron still didn't like the idea. Hell, he'd even started writing dozens of owls to Harry to tell him to convince Hermione not to come, but he knew damnedly well that there was no stopping her now that she'd been given the green light.

At the very least, he expected her to ask for them to send her back home within two days. He knew from personal experience how one's mind could react to such a world of uncertainty. It was like the War all over again, but a little bit more uncertain and completely unplanned as a whole. He just didn't think she could take facing a different world than she'd visited as a young girl.

Ron sighed as he packed his luggage. Perfect. Happy. Joie de vivre. France just wasn't that anymore.

He looked up, looking around his bedroom to make sure he hadn't forgot anything, and jumped, startled, when he saw Hermione in the doorway, wringing her hands nervously next to her trunk. Setting his trunk aside, Ron stood up and faced her. "What are you doing here?"

Hermione smiled a bit foolishly. If her hair had been longer, Ron knew she would have played with it right then. "I sort of – well, your password… I reckoned it might be 'Cannons'." She shrugged awkwardly.

Ron chuckled. Of course, how easy could it be, when all he'd ever talked about at Hogwarts was how the Chuddley Cannons were the best thing besides Honeydukes?

Hermione surveyed the room and the extra luggage stacked in one corner. Then her eyes came upon the small vanity on Vi's side, and she blushed. "I probably shouldn't have come," she said.

"Wha–" And Ron followed her line of sight. "Oh, no, Hermione, it's over between us." He felt his cheeks burn: it was so silly to be ashamed of something like that.

But Hermione prodded further as she entered the room to fold Ron's clothes in his trunk for him. "What happened?"

Ron watched her for a moment. What was there to say about his and Vi's relationship, which never had really been one to begin with anyway? "Nothing, I'm afraid," he finally sighed.

Hermione paused, looking up at him. "What? Why?"

Ron shrugged and picked up a bottle of shaving cream and his razor. "I don't kn – she fell in love with me, it was so strong and I wasn't ready for the big blow, you know? I guess I just channelled it all and sent it right back to her - like a fool."

Hermione bit her lip, resuming her task of folding Ron's clothes properly. "And later you realised this and kept your guard up with her," she offered, spying his reaction closely.

"Yeah," Ron replied a bit weakly, feeling like he shouldn't be here. "Yeah, and I kept hurting her."

Hermione sent him a sympathetic smile. "What did you tell her then?"

"I –" Ron sighed heavily. God, it was so hard when he'd been alone for the most part of two days by now. "I told her the truth. Amazingly she was okay about it."

Hermione shook her head slowly to herself. "I hope you realise that she still loves you…"

Ron disappeared for a moment, and Hermione heard him rustle about before he reappeared with his deodorant in hand. He purposefully studied the label. "I know…" he said, "but I don't and I hurt her by pretending that everything was all right when it was not." Finally he looked up into Hermione's soft and compassionate eyes. "It isn't and I'm sick of pretending." He chuckled then, throwing what he'd been holding into his trunk. "You know, it's my mum who made me realise this. 'You've been lying to yourself far too long, Ron.' It makes sense, too, dammit."

Hermione chuckled along, feeling the lightness of the moment in her heart and mind. All of this made sense to her, too. She'd been lying to herself, too, and Mrs Weasley's words definitely hit home. Reaching out to him, she seeked comfort in his chest and snaked her hands up his back and threaded her fingers in his hair.

Ron closed his eyes for a moment and relaxed at her feather-light touch and realised right then and there that he'd missed his best friend all this time. Suddenly he was hit with a wave of misery that he was pretty sure didn't come from himself. Ron pulled away and frowned concernedly at Hermione's discomfit face. "What's wrong?" he asked softly, pulling her chin up so he could see her face clearly.

Hermione bit her lip, shrugged limply and sank down on Ron's bed.

"Hey, hey," Ron said, kneeling down before her and playing with her short locks, finally settling his hand on her cheek. "What's wrong?" he repeated quietly.

Hermione smiled a bit at his worried expression. "I just realised that I'm not the only complete idiot in here…" she said lamely.

Ron shook his head solemnly. "You are not an idiot, Hermione. Whoever thinks that is the idiot himself and deserves a good kick right where it matters most."

Hermione silenced him with a finger. "Ron, please… It's all right, really. I made a mistake, just like you. I lived with a man I didn't love, and I didn't see it was wrong until it was already too late... I think that only proves we're both human."

Ron gazed up at her, still feeling her misery, but he saw it ease off her face very slowly as she smiled just that little bit. He saw her as she was and knew she was all right, and then he heaved a small breath of relief. For her. Then he looked back up and was moved by how strong a woman she had become… had always been. And he knew right then that she'd be all right, as she'd said. It took some time to heal from self-inflicted wounds. Boy, did he know…

Ron stood up, still staring up at Hermione, and charmed his trunk closed. "Let's go."

#

Ron clapped Harry on his back. Wouldn't the lad ever get used to Portkey travelling? Of course, he wasn't green in the face like in Auror training, when they'd had to travel through several portals, but still… Ron looked back at Hermione and immediately wished he hadn't. She was doubled over and retching the contents of the little snack they'd had before Apparating to their Portkey.

"Hey there, you okay?" Harry asked her after she was done, giving her and himself a Pepper-Up mint to freshen their breaths and take away the dizziness.

"I think so, yes," Hermione replied in a weak voice. Then she surveyed her bearings. "Where exactly are we?"

Ron took out a wizard's map of France and searched for the only dots which would bear their three names. "There," he said finally, pointing at three small dots in "Bourges." He frowned and looked up at Harry. "That's a bit far from Nice. I don't want to chance Apparating, we might land somewhere and get ambushed. We should probably rent a room somewhere close-by." He looked up toward the skies. "'Cause it's starting to get dark."

Harry nodded. "Right," he said. "Do you see any cheap bed & breakfasts around here?" he asked over Ron's shoulder, squinting his eyes to see the map.

Ron shrugged. "No clue. Oi there," he prodded the map, "zoom in please." The map focussed on the small part of Bourgogne et Franche-Comté. "Zoom in on Bourges," Ron said again.

Hermione cried out triumphantly and pointed to a small "B&B" banner closest to their own dots. "There's one right there. I reckon it's pretty close," she said before grabbing hold of her trunk and marching out of the back street swiftly.

Ron swore and ran after her, his trunk forgotten. "Hermione!" he cried, tightly grasping her elbow. "Don't - don't ever walk out in the open like that. You don't know there's no one out there waiting to bake you alive."

"But - but your map -" Hermione faltered.

"Only shows us," he replied tightly, urging her back toward one of the stone walls. "Us and establishments… This is not a Marauder's Map." He nudged Harry along.

Harry sighed and wearily took his wand out of its holster, charming Ron's luggage along behind him. "What?" he said when he was close enough.

Ron left Hermione's arm alone. "Let's go," he said to Harry, who grabbed hold of his trunk. To Hermione he said: "Follow us."

Quietly the band of three left the back street, surveying their bearings. To their right an old woman was walking with the help of a stick and her son. Music was drifting from an open window; Hermione recognised a song that had played during her last visit in France - "Non, je ne regrette rien", from Édith Piaf.

A young woman was laying out her lessive to dry, and next to her a young man was idly drinking a glass a red wine and watching her with a little smile. Further along, they saw a café filled with several customers. A young child was giddily jumping in his seat and dipping Oreos in his tall glass of milk.

Hermione saw her two friends keep a constantly wary eye on their surroundings. So far, though, Hermione was pretty confident that this was the France she'd learned to love in her childhood. Nothing was very much different. No one had attacked them yet. She privately raised an amused eyebrow at her "protectors", but thought it wise to keep her comments to herself.

Harry looked sidelong at her at one point during their trek, then reached the map in Ron's hand. "How far along are we?" he muttered.

"We have to cross here, then we should be there. Pretty soon."

"You know," Hermione said suddenly, "I don't see what all the worrying was about. I don't see anyone jumping out of nowhere and attacking us."

Neither Ron nor Harry replied, both preferring to keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary. It was true, the worst of the disaster was in Paris, but they'd been around and about, and had seen some of the horrors outside of the City of Lights.

It was only when they'd rented a room that Ron started rubbing his temples, heaving a huge breath. "Listen, Hermione. When we get to Nice tomorrow, you will see what we mean, but -"

Ron's eyes suddenly widened and he launched himself on Hermione, who'd been busy standing near the open window with her hands on her hips and tutting. Mere seconds later, a spell rebounded on the inside wall and back outside without touching any of its targets.

Fingers crisped around Ron's arm, Hermione shuddered. "I'm so sorry," she repeatedly whispered, then glanced toward Harry's form hidden next to the window, wand ready.

"Two blokes, " he was saying. "The oldest is probably seventeen. Dressed as muggles, both of them. The younger one's injured at the arm. They're running away just now," he muttered gravely to Ron, in an almost everyday monotone. "Don't think they're very dangerous… that looked to be a beginner's disarming spell."

Ron nodded sharply, still staring wildly at Hermione, who was frozen next to him. "Okay," he replied to Harry, swallowing the dryness in his throat. "We'll have to put up a Protective Shield around the room. Close the window, it's getting colder anyway… Hermione," he called gently, easing her fingers off of him. "Hermione, it's all right, no one was hurt. You're okay, Hermione…" he soothed, feeling the pang of her ache lift some at his words.

"I'm so sorry…" the petite witch repeated weakly, finally focussing in on Ron's kind face. "I was so rude to you."

Ron bit his lip, glancing up at Harry as though privately asking for help. Harry merely shrugged, lifting his eyebrows at Hermione before raising the hand that wasn't holding his wand and putting up a Protective Shield from the accumulated molecules in his system.

"It's okay," Ron repeated a bit awkwardly after some time. "Let's get to bed, then," he added after another gauche moment. He eased her off him and promptly rose to his feet and grabbed his pyjamas from his open trunk before locking himself in the bathroom.

Hermione stared after the door and bit her lip, didn't want to meet Harry's eyes as she said, "Will it protect us from everything?"

Harry hated these awkward moments between his friends and him… always had. But when it was caused by Ron or Hermione, it was much worse. They had a special gift for making their own lives nearly impossible, and he never knew how to clean up after them afterward. "Er, well, it's not enough to hold back the worst spells, but if you wake me up every five hours, it should hold back a good portion…" he replied, taking out his pyjamas.

Ron wasn't smart, Harry realised just then. They should have sent Hermione in the bathroom while they changed in here. And he's supposed to be practical, coming from a huge family… But Harry wasn't so stupid as to not know what was going on.

Hermione was silent, just sitting cross-legged on the bed and glancing back and forth from the now-closed window to the bathroom door.

When Ron finally came out, freckles standing out in his face where he'd most probably leaned too long on his temples while sitting on the toilet, Hermione immediately rushed in after him.

Harry understood he was in for a long night.

#

"I found some trixydolmanate with dioxedose… mmhmm… Yeah, sure, hang on…" Hermione busily rummaged through her quickly-growing sheaf of papers and emerged with the one she was looking for. "Er, well, it seems it's really spread out… No, see, no one knows until they… Yeah, exactly, they disappear. Just a second…"

Hermione let Ron in her little makeshift office with a flick of her wand and raised her index finger to her lips as he let himself in, sitting down opposite her. She studied his expression as her laboratory friend launched into her numerous theories. Hermione quickly jotted them down, then leaned backward in her seat. "You're positive it's not the ocean water? … I'll send the samples from the water cleansing establishments, then… No problem… Five days max? That would be brill… Thanks bunches, Hilda, you're an angel."

Hermione set the phone down in its cradle and folded her hands.

"Getting comfortable?" Ron immediately asked with a little smirk.

Hermione raised a cynical eyebrow. "It's a crime?" Then she closed her notebook and looked up with a more serious expression. "How was the meeting?"

"With the French Aurors? Dismal. I was sure I'd never be able to lift my jaw off the floor. They haven't covered anything in more than a year, and their general laziness stinks." He shrugged and sighed. "We managed to get an apprentice, though, like last time, almost Rémi was a little more competent and optimistic. This one's convinced it's the apocalypse and everyone's out to kill him. Working for he Ministry doesn't either, I guess, but Harry and I're convinced he'll mistake his reflection for the enemy one of these days."

He silenced himself suddenly and shook his head with a light chuckle at Hermione's stumped face, reddening slightly in the face himself. "Did I just talk like a mill?"

Hermione blinked a few times, trying to assimilate everything he'd just said. "You know, strangely, I was following you there." She shook her head to herself and smiled. "Change of subjects: When are you leaving?"

"Hopefully tonight," Ron replied, lounging back on the small chair, "so early tomorrow we can cover some ground." He paused, frowning at her meaningfully. "Don't forget to cast the Shield every two to three hours… Harry won't be here so the magic won't work as long…"

"Ron, Ron…" Hermione cut his thoughts short, shaking her head at him. "I know."

Ron stared at her, studying her as she softly spoke, and his heart went out to her, although he was scared she might be taking her staying alone without him nor Harry a little too lightly. He softened. "Gods, Hermione, it's dangerous here," he said with a certain tenderness as he cradled her cheek with one hand. " I'm just scared something might happen… we need you here, Hermione."

Hermione bit her lip to refrain from leaning right over and telling him just how much she was scared for them: they'd be out in the open and trying to find an ancient Russian vampire lord while she'd only be sheltered in the French Ministry searching for clues in books, or outside in the countryside sampling the water from specific cleansing establishments. How dangerous could that prove to be?

"I'll be just fine, Ron. Don't you worry about me."

Ron burrowed his face in her short curls as she curled her fingers around him. He hadn't really been aware that he had pulled her close, but he didn't much care. She had the right touch to lead him to make complete peace with himself, and he hadn't realised that he had missed just that until she pulled away.

"I'll be right here."

She'd always been.

#

Ron sensed Hermione's frantic tension even though he knew his empathy didn't have any running chance of helping her to heal his wound. And by the look in her eyes, it seemed it was a pretty bad one.

"What happened?" she asked, trying to calm herself as she rolled a gauze around his leg - incidentally, it was the same one that Sirius had busted in his haste to take him and Scabbers… Peter to the Shrieking Shack.

Ron looked up and hissed as another mediwitch made him drink a potion that taste nothing like apple pie. "A Death Eater struck me with his staff."

"You were fighting on ground?"

Ron nodded as the same mediwitch poured a bubbling goo over the gauze. It seeped past it and a wave of burning fire shook him again as his eyelids filled with exploding stars. "Yeah. Apparently they've learned rudimentary fighting skills as well, or something. There were five of them onto me, so I fought back, but this bastard planted his staff right into my shin and oh my fuck it hurt like shite."

Hermione tried to smile, but she was so tired her lines were only slightly stretched. Then she placed her hand over his forehead, feeling for a drop in temperature. "I disinfected your wound," she informed him as professionally as she could muster. "Mirella just put a potion on it to quicken the healing process."

"When will I be able to go back out?" Ron pressed, trying to sit up.

Hermione's voice wavered at her next phrase. "As soon as you'll be able to walk." But Ron sensed her discomfort and knew she'd rather he stayed out of the war, for various reasons.

Ron groaned out loud. Harry needed him. It was lucky Ron had survived, sure, but he didn't feel like lingering around in a place he felt uncomfortable in. He turned to Hermione, saw her white robes drenched with some of his blood, saw that it clashed horribly against her pallid skin - it would have been alabaster in other circumstances - and saw that she was exhausted but didn't want to show that she had no strength left in her. Ron knew she was working solely on adrenaline now.

"Hermione, you look tired. Go get some sleep…"

Hermione cut him off with a tinge of distress. "I'll be just fine," she ground out. "You need to rest. I'll be right here if you need me." And then she stormed off. Her abruptness didn't fool him, though.

#

Harry wasn't sure how long they'd been searching, but he knew one thing: this was quickly getting nowhere. Scrying for the vampire had proved a futile attempt, and searching the large castle-like mansion had proved just as fruitless so far. Duke Carmerana was nowhere to be found.

"Hang on, I think I've got something," Ron said from inside the adjacent room Harry was looking in. Harry heard a rumble and objects fall as Ron scrambled to get to Harry in the next room. "Here," he said as Harry looked up when Ron appeared at the doorway, handing him a small note that had obviously been jotted down in a hurry. "Found this in his desk. Locked, too."

Harry lowered his eyes to the note in question, frowned.

_"Rencontrer au Château des Piquets. 200609". _Meet at Château des Piquets. 200609

Harry guffawed and pocketed the note. "Anything else?" he inquired.

"Other similar letters, but this was the topmost one. Let's assume the numbers mean something, and assume it's the most recent one, eh?" Ron said sarcastically.

Harry laughed and picked up his robes from the king-sized four poster before exiting the boiling castle with Ron. "Let's."

#

There had always been something keenly terrifying about the War. Hermione had been moved from one place to another, wherever the War took her team and her. Everywhere had been dreary. She'd travelled from forest to back street to suburban city with the MMMI with the flick of her wand, and had avoided more curses than she'd ever thought possible to fire. She'd thought herself brave, now she knew it had been dumb luck.

The air was chilly, though she hadn't been able to leave the office the whole day. She could only hold for account the darkening trees outside, that were bending dangerously to the wind's every caprice. She'd been inside nearly the entire day, her nose pushed into books and her portable computer - a muggle fancy she couldn't possibly have passed - that now rested neatly on her makeshift office desk, made with several carton boxes pressed together and Spell-o-taped.

One Ministry employee frowned as he passed by the old broom cupboard which obviously hadn't been used since the Floo network had connected the giant fireplaces in the Ministry's huge entrance hall - nearly a century ago. "Vous êtes nouvelle?" (You're new?)

Hermione, startled, looked up at the flushed man with the air of someone caught red-handed. "Oh, er, non," she said, grasping desperately for her French. "Je suis… euh, britannique." (I am British.)

The man seemed lost, then his face illuminated. "Ah, oui, on m'avait dit que trois anglais ré-ouvraient une vieille investigation." (Ah, yes, I was told that three Brits were re-opening an old investigation.)

He entered the small room and thrust out his hand. Hermione was able to make out that the man must have been in his forties, and his welcoming smile hid an anxiety that she'd have missed from far. Behind him a loud bell suddenly sounded, and two nearby Aurors calmly walked over to the dozen of fireplaces and disappeared, mug of coffee in hand. Others were too slow or too tired, or injured already. "I - ah… I am very sorry for all of this… It is very inconfortable here. I am René Dumoucheron; I work at the Département de coopération magique internationale."

"Oh," Hermione said, enlightened. She had wondered who this man might be. "I - oh, I supposed you've come here to see that I was settled in all right." At René's nod, she smiled as widely as she could. "I'm settled in just fine, sir."

René nodded again to himself as though he was happy to hear it. "Bien. The ministère is going under a dark times. A lot of employees left, a lot is dead, and we are afraid it will end soon."

"Why?" Hermione asked, curiosity naturally piqued.

"Attacks. Bombs. Ennemis. Trahison. Infiltrations."

Hermione's eyes widened with every word that René uttered. "I heard it was bad," she said, eyes as wide as Sickles now, "but I hadn't really considered it could be true."

René's light smile faded completely off his face. "Trust me, it is bad." He straightened, stared at her hard for a few seconds, and then turned to leave. "You have sleeping arrangements?" he asked at the door, pausing.

Hermione came out of her trance. "Yes. I sleep at the Lever de Lune."

"Protection?"

Hermione's throat constricted as she thought back on the War and realised for the first time that her favourite country was plunged in a similar predicament as that which her native country had undergone some ten years prior. A loud explosion sounded nearby, making Hermione jump, all nerves on edge, but René remained stoic, a statue in this confusion.

"I think I can survive another war by myself," she said, the old fear shaking her voice nonetheless.

"Soyez à vos gardes," (Be careful) she heard the tired old man mutter as he left in the direction of the cries in the hallway.

#

Harry pulled himself upright, panting, feeling like his entire body might betray him and crack in two. It was unbearable; the twisting, sinewy pain, atrocious, and the encapsulated fear he'd denied for the past two years that he wouldn't succeed all tore at him now. One had to die, and he was afraid of only one thing: that the power might rest with the Dark after all.

Ron tore himself away from the hordes of fighting airborne allies and swept down to Harry's level. "Harry! Where -"

Harry's eyes widened at that precise moment - "Look out!" - as a blast missed his friend and second-in-command by an inch. "Go away! Go away!" he cried.

Harry whipped back around and quickly scanned the small village for a sign of the Dark Lord before trying each suspect house and shoppe.

The street itself was a straight line and ended in a sharp turn that created an "L" shape. It was cold and muddy on the ground, with pouring rain on top of it, and each step forward was harder than the last. He saw dark silhouettes drawn on his path and knew that the rest of the flying squad had flown in to help them. But there was no time to think about them. Harry tightened his robes around him and carefully opened a door that had been left ajar.

The sound of a baby crying reached his ears. Or was he turning insane after all? The sound reached him on a much higher plane, as though he recognised it but couldn't quite place it. The only babies he remembered ever seeing were cold in even colder houses. Dead. It couldn't be, then…

The rest was blur, too, too fast. There was a moment of recognition in Harry's mind that the baby's cries had in fact been the cries of a dying woman. It was only later that he let himself seep into the notion that he'd perhaps revisited his distant, unconscious past during these few seconds of blind confusion. And then there was silence and the skeletal figure, reeking of rotting death itself and staring him down with those blood-like irises. Harry knew right then that tonight would be a fateful April thirty-first of the year two thousand. Because Voldemort simply did not stay so calmly and wait for Harry. He fought. Harry knew it all too well. The scars were evidence of this fact.

Whether or not he'd live to tell its tale, he didn't know, but Harry knew nothing else from that moment on than that he needed to let go. Completely.

All of the fury that he'd kept locked in for months, knowing that the time would eventually come when the blind chases would finally lead him to the mastermind behind all of the agony. It trickled excitedly in his veins, thickening with each passing moment, faster, thicker.

Voldemort slowly advanced toward Harry, a vision of cynical power and that of a true commandeer. "So you've found me," he said, and the words slithered out like a snake out of its hiding place.

Venom. Those brazen eyes held venom.

Harry said nothing, only crouched down to the gurgling woman's side whilst holding watch over the corpse-like man.

The last battle lasted only a second, then, and all remaining innocence was lost in that instant. The woman died, Voldemort was Killed, Harry had been cursed. And his wand hand burned from the intensity at which he'd shot the last Curse he ever wished to cast.

In the end silence had filled his day. Darkness, too.

#

Harry held the door open for Ron and entered after him, stepping cautiously over the kitchen floor in the basement. There should have been cooks here, preparing a fine gourmet meal, but it was abandoned and nearly Unplottable - French wizard lords had owned the castle at some point and hidden it in the heart of a forest. Fortunately it was present on very few wizarding maps of France - Harry and Ron's included. Fortunately.

"You go to the east tower, I'll go to the main chambers," Harry whispered before starting toward the staircase leading to the main floor.

"No," Ron whispered back, clamping a hand over his mate's shoulder. "He's a vampire - he can't be somewhere with windows or natural light coming in the middle of the day."

Harry frowned, a bit miffed that they'd be losing precious time talking this over instead of catching their vampire. He groaned, "What are you -" Suddenly he cut himself off, watching Ron stare at the stone floors, and light dawned on him.

Ron nodded, smiling almost triumphantly. "The dungeons it is."

#

She suspected that a yellow flowered sundress, however charming it looked on her or any other woman, would never be quite enough to calm her nerves, now that she knew what real horrors lay in this country… She had already dodged a fireball on her way out of Ministry reach, hidden from suspicious-looking men around a bend, and had had to Petrify a young rebel who didn't quite have all of his head. Basically, her wartime instincts were back full force, even though she hadn't faced the War full frontal per se.

It was bad enough that she had to delve back into the memories now and again… Hermione was beginning to wonder why she had come to France after all. But then there was boredom at work, and there was so much to face back home.

"Qui va là?" (Who goes there?)

A tall, sturdy man with a gruff voice and arms like barrels suddenly planted himself between the small establishment's front desk and her.

Why had she let him surprise her?

Hermione's French was pretty much basic once again - there had been a time when she'd been able to hold a conversation rather well, even with locals. She struggled now to find her words after her presentation. "Je m'appelle Mary Calmel. On m'a… er, fait part de… de quelques problèmes que… avec votre eau." (My name is Mary Calmel. I have been informed that your water may have been infected.)

"Mon eau est très saine!" (My water is very clean!) the ageing man growled, his face quite red already.

Hermione's hands trembled, but she tightened her grip on her note pad. "Écoutez… ils m'ont demandé de… de regarder votre… votre équipement." (Look, they asked me to check your equipment.)

The man immediately became suspicious. Hermione watched a drop of sweat tumble from his nose as his eyebrows shot down. "Qui sont vos employeurs? Vous êtes anglaise; que diable faîtes-vous en France?" (Who are your employers? You're English; what the hell are you doing in France?)

Caught. "Euh, je viens du Centre de santé de Nice. Il y a eu des… des rapports venant de vos clients. Je viens pour… er, des vérifications… Vous avez ma parole." (Er, I'm from the Health Centre of Nice. There have been… complaints from your clients. I have to make verifications… You have my word.)

He stared at her hard for a long time before nodding with a mean, bulldog like expression, his nose creased with disdain, and then he pointed to a small door leading to the installations. "Faîtes votre boulot, mais sacrez pas le bordel." (Do it, but don't fuck anything up.)

Hermione let out a huge breath of relief and smiled triumphantly, making her way to her first water cleaning device and sampling the cleansed water as well as making notes of the temperature and whatnot. It could help.

Later she would send her samples to Hilda, her friend in the composites department at Auldenberk. In five days tops they would know the truth about how those poor wizards had vanished, and try to find a way to make them visible again, if ever possible.

Hermione really wished Ron and Harry were there right now, though.

#

The foliage rustled behind her. Hermione's movements froze, and she heard it again. In the distance there were the faraway cries of Harry's army. Most of them had been on foot, but she remembered leaving the infirmary to get more rosewood for a patient's quickly rotting ear and seeing the air squad kick off. Somewhere in there, Ron, Gin and Luna were going to meet with the Death Eaters.

Just like she was, probably, just now.

The foliage parted and Hermione cried out, backing into a tree and tripping on her own feet and oversized white robes.

She heard laughter, too. "I always liked nurse-playing. Didn't you?"

The voice ran ice-cold in Hermione's veins. Parkinson.

"My father would pretend sick, you see, and I'd pretend I was the best goddamn Healer the world had ever seen."

Who cares what sorts of sick, perverted games you played, rushed through Hermione's mind as she scrambled on the ground to run, scraping her fingernails in the dirt and rocks and panting violently, feeling her heart rush in her throat. I will not vomit on my last hour…

Suddenly she was pulled back into the air by magic, and quickly bound. "You make it so easy. But then again, you're probably feeling really strong now because Potter's invincible in your daft, blind eyes." Pansy forced Hermione's head back by the hair, a fist so tight Hermione's head hurt and she saw stars. "Listen to my secret: Potter's about to bite the dust, Granger."

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut. No.

"Yes," Parkinson sneered delightfully, "yes, he's facing the Dark Lord as we speak. And do you know what I'll do when my Lord has finally finished him off?" She smirked to herself. "I'll be dancing on all of your graves, mudblood bitch. I'll sing your death most of all. Oh, yes, sweet vengeance…

"I'll make this last. I'll make it worth all my while. I'll make you my slave first; perhaps I'll enjoy every moment of it. And then I'll draw your blood slowly, make sure that every last drop of you is spent. I'll watch you die, Granger. And I'll love every second of it."

The cold rain had made her robes cling to Hermione; now Pansy was watching ever heaving breath shake her body with hungry eyes. And then she closed the small distance between them.

Hermione was helpless against the binds tying her hands and mouth. She couldn't reach her wand in her side-pocket. Her eyes squeezed tightly shut once more; she willed herself to not feel so cold and, not feel Pansy's acrid breath on her neck or her hands roaming her body like a hungry wolf. It was so wrong, and Hermione's eyes filled as she realised her punishment for wandering too far from camp.

"You're scared," Pansy said before cupping Hermione's breasts and licking her collarbone, at last tearing the tears from Hermione's terrified eyes. "I like that."

The bark in Hermione's back was suddenly too sharp, her skin hurt so much and she felt violated and despoiled, and everything around her was black when she opened her eyes to find Pansy staring back at her with a wicked leer.

"How does it feel to be hated so much that it really fucking hurts?" Pansy snarled with her fist in Hermione's hair and her wand against Hermione's temple, ready to cast the curse that would send Hermione into tumbles of pain.

A huge blast sent her crashing into a nearby tree.

A warm, safe set of hands gently cupped Hermione's face, shaking terribly. A muddy cheek delicately rested on Hermione's head, and she felt cut from the rest of the world as heat surrounded her, comforting.

Hermione's tears fell free at last as she registered her saviour's face. "Ron," she choked out through a sob, falling to her knees with shock and, ultimately, bringing him down with her. "Oh, Ron," she whispered, "that was so scary… I thought I'd -"

"Shh…" Ron said as he buried her face in his shoulder, snuggling into, shaking with fear as well. They were a tangle of dirty limbs and fright. What would have happened if I hadn't come when I did? "You're safe, Hermione."

Hermione tightened her hold on him, then sighed. "Thank you," she breathed out, "for saving me."

Ron smiled and brushed some stray hairs back, toying with her cheeks. "I'll always be there to keep you safe." He stood up, pulling her along slowly with him. "Come on, let's go back," he added, distantly, knowing full well that Harry was fighting his own demons.


	5. Battlefield of the Avenging, part II

**Chapter Three: War Zone: Battlefield of the Avenging**

_**Chapter three, part II**_

The dungeons were extremely cramped and reminded the two men of their former Potions teacher's classroom and office, with its cold and dank decorum and bad lighting. There were no windows and no working lamps - it seemed they had been broken, or perhaps the electricity bills hadn't been paid in a long time, Harry thought, for spider webs abounded around them. There was also a very faint acrid smell that drifted to his nostrils.

"You take that chamber; I'll take the next one," Ron said before unholstering his wand - they'd asked their superiors to have special holsters that would be secured around their torsos, much like the ones Ginny had patented for the War so that their wands would be in easy reach - and moving to a chamber a little further along the corridor.

Harry held his wand aloft just in case something went out of his control, and slowly pushed the door open with his foot. Surprisingly it wasn't locked. Making certain that there would be no impromptu attack, Harry then carefully made his way into the chamber, noting the dusted furniture, but also the various objects that had been used recently: an envelope opener, a twig serving as a quill, a book opened to a page but facing the desk face-down, a framed painting recently dusted… Someone had lived or at the very least passed by for a short while, and that person very obviously had liked the freshness of the dungeons. Someone very likely on the run.

Ron came up behind Harry. "Looks like someone came in not long ago," he commented, stopping to collect a fingerprint on a vase that held dead flowers. "Sinister…" he added, jotting down some notes on the evidence parchment. He then pursed his lips and sent the prints and notes to Trace with a flourish of his wand. He paused before starting back toward Harry. "Other room wasn't very interesting. Looks like we've found where Carmerana stayed though."

Harry frowned, squinting his eyes to think, weighing every possible scenario from there on. "Problem is, we haven't found _him_ yet. He couldn't know we were after him, that's near impossible."

Ron grimaced before picking up a bloody glove off the floor next to the neatly-made bed with the tip of his wand. "Well maybe he felt he had to flee after killing whoever this belongs to."

Harry rubbed his eyes wearily and then nodded resolutely. "Well, next logical step is searching the castle to find who this blood belongs to."

"Hang on, this could be Carmerana's blood."

Harry pursed his lips and cleaned his wand on his robes before picking up the glove with it. He brought the glove to his nose and pulled a face. "No. Vampire blood smells like garlic." He handed the cloth back to Ron. "This doesn't. Send this to Trace so they can run it in the database… maybe find out who the victim is before we do."

Ron nodded and pulled a plastic bag from his field bag, proceeding. He quickly jotted down the necessary information and sent it all to Trace with a fast flourish. In his hand was a knotted cloth from his field pouch, with which he'd picked up some blood off the floor.

Harry raked a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. He was still squinting in the dimmed light, trying to figure it all out. Finally Ron put his hand on his mate's shoulder, and Harry turned to him, seeing the cloth. "Well," he said, "next stop, I guess, is wherever the blood scrye leads us to."

Ron nodded and pronounced the Homing spell, tapping his wand on the blood-spotted cloth and then on the map Harry held out to him, speaking the incantation. Both men then gazed upon the map, and for a few seconds there was nothing, but then a glaring red "X" mark appeared next to a town named Vieux-Nice.

Ron didn't have to say a thing. Already Harry's body had dematerialised, and with a crack Ron, too, was gone.

#

Hermione averted her eyes as she crossed to the _Lever de Lune_, keenly aware that it was well after dark and that she was unprotected save for her wand - but she'd be damned if someone so much as tried to impress on her that witches and wizards were invincible when their wands were involved… she could tell them a few stories where it hadn't ended as planned for a few people she'd known. Wearing her wand but being foolishly unprepared had also almost cost her her life. But she decided she'd be better off trying to blend in the already very suspicious crowd.

Even the desk attendant lady seemed suspicious as Hermione re-collected her key.

"No need to be, I'm just minding my own business here," Hermione muttered to herself, climbing the flights of stairs to her and Harry and Ron's small room.

Devastated.

Stacks of neatly piled parchments strewn all over the cracked vinyl floor, ruined furniture, broken quills, strewn clothes and a broken window.

Hermione, shocked still, paused in the doorway, and roamed the room from corner to fissure, unable to think anything else than _I've been robbed I've been robbed oh my God._ Finally she closed the door behind her, leaning back onto it, and slid down to the floor, nesting her head between her knees weakly.

"What do I do now?" she said to no one in particular.

It all seemed too unreal. Hermione remembered casting the numerous, _safe_ locking charms, all designed to use complicated, ancient spells for passwords. _Long_, ancient spells. How could someone have broken in? It was simply impossible.

Pushing herself up, she reminded herself once more that this was probably nothing compared to everyday living in France. She would deal with much worse if she were French and worked for the _Ministère de magie français_.

Hermione slowly edged toward the broken window, cautiously stepping over the broken pieces, and lightly touched the sharp shards with the tip of her wand. "_Reparo_."

The pieces flew back into place as if nothing strange had happened. Hermione cast the Protective Shield around the cramped room once more, wishing that the boys could be here with her.

Hermione was not a damsel in distress, but catastrophes like this couldn't be looked upon without feeling weak and powerless in response.

#

"I wish you'd stop staring; it's disturbing."

He quickly averted his gaze and instead fiddled with his wand, rolling it between his fingers and weighing it distractedly. "Sorry." It was the beginning of the War and already Harry was itching to get his hands on the Dark Lord. He knew that tactics and careful planning would get him there, but he was… he was agitated.

Hermione sighed as she made the familiar circular motion with her own wand, that would cast a warm Healing charm to his broken knee. "It's all right, Harry, but you're making me nervous."

"What? With that?" he reeled sarcastically, referring to his wand.

Hermione shrugged, laying out a thick papyrus sheet over his knee. "Well, sometimes," she admitted hesitantly. She moved her gaze from his face to the task at hand. "Don't move; the papyrus will help accelerate the absorption of the charm."

Harry smiled, folding his arms over his chest admiringly and feeling content for the first time in a long time. "You're a charm."

Hermione made a clucking noise in her throat as she proceeded to puff out the pillows behind him. "Don't be silly, Harry, I'm only doing my job."

He chortled, the lines in his face looking odd and contrasting, like he'd aged too fast in a too short period of time. "And a right good job of it, too."

Hermione shook her head and smiled, sitting back on her heels. "What's making you so happy, mister?"

Harry did not have time to answer, for a mediwitch came in, barking out orders for all nurses and operating mediwitches and magidoctors as three dozen casualties were levitated in. Hermione only had time to see Harry's face grow dark before she was hurried to the Head mediwitch's side, horrified at the mangled body laid out before her. "Where did this one come from?" she asked before a wave of bile rode up her throat.

"A John Doe. He was found in the Ministry after the explosion, cursed real bad. Now give me a hand, will you. Find his spinal cord, I think it was destroyed, we'll have to perform a…"

Thankfully they were far enough away from the front lines, in London in fact, where it was safer than out in the country, where the War was raging full-on after only a few months. Usually it was Harry's group that was there, but for the last few days they'd been branched out to do Ministry surveillance tasks. And today the Death Eaters had chosen to bomb it. This was nothing, though, compared to the front lines. What she saw sometimes bordered toward repulsive and she often had to excuse herself to the lavatory for a few minutes and come back in just as sick to the stomach.

This man did seem to have been hit badly, but he was an exception. He wasn't quite as revolting as one of her last patients. This man's body was covered with large third degree burns and boils, his lungs were badly damaged, and his spinal cord was mostly destroyed, but really it was an easy case… if they were careful and if he held out long enough. They'd seen worse. She'd seen worse.

Hermione inspected and felt the man's skin for further internal or external injuries, as the protocol required. Looking at the man's face, she cried out.

This was no nameless mangled body.

It was Ron's father.

#

Hermione could still remember the look on Harry's face when she told him. He had paled and she'd had to Petrify him so he wouldn't move.

But the worst had truly been telling Ron.

Ginny had cried all the tears in her body 'til there were none left, and even then she'd cried herself raw.

Ron had been quiet.

Too quiet.

#

"Ron," Hermione whispered as she pushed aside the curtain separating him from the chaotic world outside. She had tried to tell them they could sound-proof the tent, but he and Harry had just refused to listen… They said they wanted to hear everything that was going on, at all times. To be ever ready.

He was sitting in front of his wand and broomstick, and he had shed his robes and thick dragonhide gloves, staring at nothing, staring at an endless pool of nothing. It was fearsome, to say the least.

Hermione knelt in front of him. "Say something," she said quietly, threading her fingers through his shaggy hair. "It's been days."

Ron glanced at her, acknowledging her presence, and Hermione felt small and vulnerable at once under his stare. The depth in his eyes was alluring, stormy, angry. "There's nothing to say. Dad's dead."

Hermione's heart wrenched. She bit her lip. "We did everything we could. You know, Ron."

He stared at her, still a wall, but angrier. "He was bombed, Hermione. It was aimed at him and you know it. He was the Minister of Magic… of course they killed him."

She bowed her head and all the recent events came rushing back to her. "It's so unfair. He was right. He was fit. He was… the best," she finished on a whisper.

Ron's eyes softened. "Hermione…" It was a gentle tone, one not meant to sound annoyed, and she was grateful for it. Ron held up a hand, stopping her as the tears came free from her eyes.

Finally he relented from his stiff posture and pulled her to his chest. "Oh Gods…" She knew he had finally capitulated, and probed her thoughts and seen what she had seen. She could feel it from the way his fingers curled tautly in her back, scared, desperate.

A small sense of triumph bloomed in Hermione's heart. As she sobbed, clutching Ron to her chest where all the pain could be penetrated and felt, Hermione ground out, "You've got to feel something, Ron. You've got to let go." She sniffed again as he held her tight against him, and was elated: he was shaking. "He was your father, Ron, you can't feel nothing."

He felt it. He felt all the pain and the loss, and all night he desperately clung to her, holding her tight as though she'd disappear in the morning if he ever let her go. Hermione wept and fell asleep in Ron's arms, feeling at peace for the first time in so long; Ron would go on.

It was fear, she knew it. Recognised it by feel, even. Fear that made her realise that this was what she'd lived through during the dreadful years of 1998 to 2000. Two years of hell on a plate. Hell in spilt blood, hell in loved ones warring and in mangled bodies, hell moreso in the lifeless ones.

#

France was undergoing the same war they'd fought years ago. Only, it wasn't the same evil.

Hermione heard footsteps and ragged breaths and knew they'd already killed. Cursed herself for letting herself get lost in the memories…

The house was too quiet now, too dark.

She fumbled for her wand with shaking fingers and tripped over the bed and the rug at the foot of it. Cursed herself again.

When they blasted the door open, the room appeared empty. "Je l'ai entendue… elle était là y'a un instant!" (I heard her… she was here just now!)

The other thug tapped on his partner's shoulder and nodded his greasy head toward Hermione's hidden form behind the door. They both grinned voraciously.

"Alors, ma p'tite mam'zelle, on joue au chat et à la souris?" (So, missy, we're playing at cat and mouse?) the taller one snarled with a leer, and the smaller one broke out in fits of sniggers. "Tu sauras qu'ici, ça fait longtemps qu'on ne joue plus…" (You should know that here, we don't play anymore…)

They slowly advanced toward her and Hermione's eyes widened when she realised she was trapped. These were muggle thugs, she realised with a sharp sting at her heart; she wasn't allowed to use magic against them. But still they prowled toward her and Hermione struggled to find a way out. The little bit of DA training she'd got before the War was too far forgotten now, and she'd never been much of a good fighter anyway. The one thing she _had_ excelled at, though, was agility and flexibility.

Hermione was lighting-fast. Before the littler one's hand could close around her throat, she'd already crouched low and whisked her foot sideways to unbalance the taller thug. But she lost her own balance in the process, and heard a sharp crack as she fell.

Something had cracked and it was on her. Looking back, Hermione saw that her wand had been snapped in half. Fear shook her hard and she realised miserably that she was really on her own now.

"_Putain_!" (Slut!) cried one of her opponents as she landed a punch and rolled out of harm's way. Picking up the remains of her wand in one quick scoop, she pocketed them and grabbed her trunk before slamming her way out of the bed and breakfast.

_Harry and Ron will kill me…_she thought alarmingly as she halted in the middle of the street and stared up and down it, coming to the conclusion that she was lost and that no one could be trusted.

#

Harry held the map before him, zooming in and out of Vieux-Nice then and again, and frowned. "Hang on." He stopped walking and pulled Ron to the side of the road they were trekking by the sleeve. "I can't see Hermione anymore," he whispered, keeping an eye trained on the numerous bystanders.

"What do you mean, you can't see her?" Ron snatched the map from his friend's slack grasp and roamed it frantically, not quite believing his eyes. "Surely she's somewhere in there. She was supposed to stay at the bed & breakfast…"

But already Harry's mind was reeling two hundred kilometres an hour. There were two options presenting themselves to him: either she had been kidnapped and taken somewhere that wasn't drawn on here, or her wand was broken and therefore there were no magical binds to the map.

"Hermione…" he whispered, then looked up, green eyes and straight jaw set in a face drawn in determination. "I'm going back to see what's up with this. You stay here and find Carmerana. If anything goes astray, Apparate to where I am," he said, waving the map in front of his friend's eyes.

#

Ron frayed amid the small crowd of men, women and children coming and strolling from all sides. He softly thumbed his wand through the wizarding robes he'd transfigured into a tattered muggle coat. _To blend in_, Harry had said. He didn't need blending in, Ron thought, he knew what it was like to be that close to the street side. It wasn't something you could forget very easily.

He stared at the parchment in his hand and then looked up, looking for landmarks of some sort. There were ruins close-by. The red dot - Carmerana's - was close to it, and Ron's dot was too far from it.

"_Excusez-moi,_ _parlez anglais_?" (S'cuse me, speak English?) he asked to a grumpy-looking old man who reminded Ron of an angry ferret.

"_Va te faire fouttre_." (Go to hell.)

Ron didn't know what that meant but the tone of voice the man had used, and the fact that he was pushing away with loud grunts of impatience, was enough for Ron to understand that he wasn't going to co-operate at all.

"_Connard_." (Arsehole.)

"_Va chier_." (_another vile thing that means_ Go to hell)

"_Enculé._" (_another swear word_)

"_Ta gueule, morveux_." (Shut up.)

"_Yes._"

Ron whirled back to the young woman. He hadn't been very hopeful, and therefore hadn't paid her much attention. "Thank God," he breathed, then grabbed her elbow and dragged her to the sidewalk, pocketing his map. "I'm lost. Do you know where the Saint-Gaetan Chapel is?"

The girl eyed him suspiciously, her thick eyebrows drawn together. "You are very lucky you found me. Country people don't speak English much," she said with a thick French accent, staring at him hard as though she thought he was quite out of place here in the middle of Old Nice. "What… Why do you go there?"

Ron raked a hand through his hair, believing this was taking far too long. "I'm from England… Roger Smith… I need to go to the Saint-Gaetan Chapel for business."

She eyed him suspiciously still, then nodded with difficulty. "Nathalie Sansoucis. Renovator artist at the Chapel. You're in luck. I was going to work now," she said, then turned south. "And it's _that _way."

#

Harry knew something was wrong the minute he appeared from behind bushes. The street was deserted, and a smell of soot reached his nostrils. Something was burning. Or _had _burned.

The bed and breakfast was intact, but a house further up the narrow street was ruined, to put it simply. When he entered the _Lever de Lune_, everything was silent and dark. _Something's definitely wrong here_, he concluded, drawing his wand cautiously. He bent over the front desk, where the lady would have been… and almost threw up right then and there. Her legs had been severed as well as her arms and her head.

Harry really wanted to believe that the map could somehow lie.

Slowly he climbed the stairs and saw that the door was slightly ajar. A sick feeling crawled up his throat and stayed rooted there as he pushed it open. He almost didn't even want to look, for fear that he might find something even more repulsive.

The room was a total mess of tangled and rolled bed sheets and scattered mirror shards from the vanity. Papers had flown everywhere, making the room resemble some sort of medical shrine.

Harry's wand hand dropped at his side, and his next words were lost somewhere in his throat. "Hermione… what have you done?"

#

Hermione made her way slowly through the crowded street and wished that her wand was intact. If she used it now and Apparated somewhere else, she feared she might splinch herself or, worse, die. She'd walked to a neighbouring town, hoping against all hope that the thugs had given up and wouldn't follow her. And that Harry and Ron would soon find her.

Stopping, she then looked up and then around, having no clue as to where she was. _Great, you've lost yourself now. Brilliant._

"Excusez-moi, je… je suis perdue. Comment se… s'appelle cette ville?" (Excuse me, I… I am lost. What is this town?)

An old woman smiled a yellow-toothed smile at Hermione. "Ça dépend à qui vous demandez…" (Depends whom you're asking…) She eyed Hermione's wand holster wrapped around her ribcage, empty as she'd placed her broken wand in her coat pocket. "De quel côté êtes-vous?" (Which side are you on?)

"What?" The young witch recoiled at the woman's avid stare, backing away as she reached out for Hermione. "Je… je ne comprend pas." (I… I don't understand.)

The woman sneered, her face only inches away from Hermione's. "Quel camp?" (What side?) she said patiently. "Les bons ou les méchants?" (The good ones or the bad ones?)

Hermione felt something hard jab into her back; it was a flower pot, from one of the windows of the small townhouses. She slid a hand inside her pocket, grasping her shattered wand between her fingers. It wasn't of much use anymore, but it was a relief somehow. "Les bons, bien sûr." (The good ones, of course)

The woman whirled around without another word, her stringy grey hair greasy, and her clothes muddy and dirty. "Venez," (Come) she tossed over her shoulder.

Hermione had no other choice than to follow her to a dark alleyway where one singly street lamp flickered incessantly and seemed about to die. The pavement was wet and reflected the light from outside the alley, and there were garbage bags and cans in one corner, reeking of rotten cheese and all kinds of foetid and tangy smells. The woman muttered something to herself and then stood in the middle of a circle that seemed to have been carved into the cracked pavement. She pulled Hermione in it with her and then tapped the lamp post with the tip of her wand.

"Bienvenue à la Vallée des Lumières," (Welcome to the Valley of Light,) said a voice from nowhere.

Hermione stood amazed at the scene before her, but already the woman wordlessly dragged her from her spot.

It was just like Diagon Alley in London, but here there were fairies and other luminescent creatures soaring over their heads, as well as beautiful buildings made of reflecting glass looking like ice sculptures.

"Where are we going?" Hermione found herself asking before she could think to translate. The woman was dragging her to the top of a hill ways away from the little village, and Hermione saw nothing that could be of interest except a beautiful natural lake and gorgeous treetops.

"Shut up an' follow me."

Hermione startled. "You speak English?" she exclaimed incredulously.

The woman made an impatient and oddly familiar gesture with her hand. "Of course." And then Hermione saw her whip her wand down her body. A glamour.

"Fleur!"

The woman put her index finger to her mouth and pushed Hermione to a tree. "Look," she muttered as though scared someone might find them out, "I am taking you to somewhere good. Please trust me." She looked past the tree, wistful. "I know who you are. You know who I am. Now believe me."

Hermione hesitated, looking down the hill toward the lake. Could she trust Fleur? She could easily be drowned and no one would be the wisest.

Fleur's eyes implored her. "I 'ave followed you since you came 'ere; I recognised you, an' you can help us."

"Us?"

Fleur nodded. "We are the good side, I promise."

Hermione didn't know how she ended up in front of the lake but she wasn't afraid anymore. Fleur might have been a bit egocentric in the past but she seemed to genuinely want help … whatever for, she didn't know. But it felt good to trust someone again.

"So… what are we waiting for?" she asked conversationally. The place seemed rather familiar, like she had been here before, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

Fleur smiled, and her beauty reflected in it. "It rises from the… depths, you say? It is beautiful…" she trailed off, gazing at the many ripples on the bed of water before them. "All you need is to believe."

Hermione frowned, confused. "Believe in what?"

The smile never wavered, and it was like Fleur worshipped the lake. "The castle… Beauxbâtons."

Hermione gasped and looked back at the lake and, slowly, as if in a dream, contours and lines became clearer. She _had_ been here before. Soon a gorgeous white and crystal-clear castle was looming high over them, towers and towers expanding before them. Beautiful glasslike arcs appeared before Fleur and Hermione, a white bridge at their feet.

Fleur turned to Hermione and winked invitingly. "Do you believe?"

Hermione let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. "Goodness, yes… _This_ is Beauxbâtons?"

"You stand before it, yes." She gestured to the bridge. "After you."

Scallops and vine designs adorned the walls, which seemed to be coming straight from fairy tale books. The huge circular garden in front of the great silver doors was accentuated by a water fountain in the centre of it - an intricate work of art consisting of twists of silver and crystal leaves that seemed to want to touch the skies - and made of colourful plants and flowers, giving life and joy to the essentially neutral and lifeless colours of the castle.

Hermione was amazed at everything she saw. "The books only ever said Beauxbâtons was eccentric."

"The founder was Jean-Christophe Émilion Barthélémy Beauxbâtons. He 'ad studied the arts of the _moldus_… er, muggles and built the castle in 1716, based on the Renaissance and Baroque artistry and the elven _délicatesse_."

Hermione whistled lowly. "A grandiose job he did." She turned to Fleur, eyebrows raised. "But I don't get it. What do you want me to help you with?"

Fleur motioned for Hermione to follow her again. They passed by a Great Hall, with three long tables of a white product, staircases that disappeared and reappeared at will; they appeared to be made of frozen dripping water and white leaves for banisters. They passed by numerous doors, and finally Fleur stopped before a door that looked just like the others. "Wait," she said. "You must understand that we are a secret group. You can't talk about us to anyone."

"But H-"

Fleur's eyes flashed. "No one."

Hermione swallowed hard and then nodded. "Okay."

#

"So what kind of business are you 'ere for? It doesn't seem you are donating money or buying pieces."

Ron laughed and then sat down on a small pillar near Nathalie's working space. She was perched on a stool with brushes and pots of some stinking mixture scattered around her as she spread out some bit of the mixture on parts of the painting she was working on.

"I'm not a buyer… don't have the money. But…" How insane would it sound if he told her an enemy of this country's other world, a vampire at that, was hiding precisely in this chapel? He cast one long look at her in her overalls and decided to go looking for his evil duke alone. "Look, thanks for taking me here and all, but I'll be fine on my own here."

He halted after his first step. The trouble was, where to look first?

Ron climbed on top of the altar and surveyed the surroundings. There were about three other artists around - another painter like Nathalie, someone working with plaster and ceramics, and someone bent over the praying benches, pouring something on the wood and working on making it all look better. _He can't be out there in the open daylight… the sun's too strong._ Ron jumped down and proceeded to go fetch one of the site maps that Nathalie had got from the chapel's entrance. _Gah, stupid, they haven't got three dimensional vision in these things…_

Grumbling to himself, Ron disappeared through a staircase leading to the basement. Only to be scared half to death by a small hand on his shoulder.

"Strangers are not supposed to go down alone during the renovations." The familiar voice was confirmed when a torch flared to life on its own - in the muggle world? Oh, he remembered his dad talking about batterkeys… - and Nathalie's face appeared from the dark. "What are you doing here?"

Ron groaned inwardly. "What are _you_ doing here?" Now she wasn't going to leave him alone, he knew it, he _knew_ it.

Nathalie crooked an eyebrow. "I happen to work 'ere… and I followed you. For a reason, I see. What are you looking for? There is plenty of things to look at up there."

Ron gave a loud, impatient cry. "I'm _not_ looking to buy! Go away, I'll find my way."

Nathalie frowned angrily, then grabbed his wrist. The light flickered dangerously in the tunnel-like basement - Ron thought he remembered Nathalie telling him that the basement was huge and lacked eckeltricity since a recent pow-wow outage. "Visitors are _not_ allowed down there during the renovations."

Ron shook her away and started down again. "Let's see… Visitor? Nope. Officer? Yep." He whirled back to face her. "I'd like to keep doing my job as I see fit, if you see what I mean…"

She snorted derisively. "Where's your badge?"

Ron muttered something that sounded like "Undercover."

"Ah, I see," she chuckled. "For a undercover police officer, you are doing a very poor job. Where's your flashlight?"

Ron reddened in the face, hoping she couldn't see it in the poor lighting. _Damn, I'd make a very poor muggle._ "Lost it," he supplied.

"I didn't see you take one."

Ron whirled on her once again, shaking and his face looking even more insane in the weak light. "I don't need one!"

Nathalie's eyes widened with something like fear. And then there was black. "_Merde_!"

"You call this a flashlight?" Ron grumbled more to himself and then hit a wall. "Yow!"

"Smooth, very smooth…" came Nathalie's teasing voice.

Ron was raging as he spat back, "Will you leave me alone? What the bloody hell do you want?" He felt for the wall with numb fingers and then veered right, where another passage seemed to go.

There was a long silence until Nathalie spoke again. "You know, usually, when a flashlight dies, we go back and get another one."

Ron seethed and felt in his coat pocket and produced his wand, lighting it in one go. When he realised what he'd done, it was already too late.

Nathalie keeled backward at the sudden source of light and cried out, then blinked stupidly, staring up at him, opening and closing her mouth like a fish out of water. "What - how - you - oh _mon dieu_!"

He knelt before her and grinned impishly, feeling in control again somehow. "I'm a wizard, Nathalie. And a thumping good one, at that."

Nathalie held out her hand, as though thinking before she would protest, and then she glanced at his wand tip, alight with a 'Lumos' he didn't even remember casting. "Wait a second, that's a trick wand. I've seen one of those… Last night… This man was carrying one just like that. I thought he was a madman, you don't see old men playing _lycée_ games everyday…"

Ron's eyes widened. "What-what-what did you just say? You saw a man with a wand like mine?"

"Yes," she replied, frowning. "He seemed crazy, too. Said 'e was having a small reception in the Couvent de la Visitation-Saint-François. Crazy man…"

Ron grabbed her by the shoulders and shook, looking quite the hysterical man. "You should have told me this an hour ago! Where is this convent?"

Nathalie eyed him like he was crazy, too. "Umm, maybe I should take you… Is he a runaway prisoner?" she asked as he started up the staircase, his wand held out before him like a beacon.

"You could say that."

She frowned then, catching up to him. "Are you not a bit old for playing wizard?"

He chuckled, glancing sideways at her. "You're never too old."

#

Harry bit his lip, glancing every two seconds at the map as if, from the power of his will alone, he could make her dot pop back onto it. The truth was, he was scared shitless. Anything could have happened to Hermione. _Anything_. She could have been taken by kidnappers, she could have run away and broken her wand, just as well as she could have simply broken it and she'd be back very soon, because Hermione wasn't someone to do things impulsively like that… or the Hermione he used to know. Who knew how much she could have changed over the span of those years away…

_We shouldn't have taken her_. He'd known it was taking too many risks, but he had simply told himself that she'd be invaluable help in the Evanidus case. _We shouldn't have taken her_. Look where they all were now: Ron was alone trying to find their Evil Vampire Duke; Hermione was lost at the very least; he was in an empty bed and breakfast and its owner was dead and there were no other witnesses for there had been no other rented room at the time.

Harry still felt like shite when a muggle officer of peace and his (amazingly) bilingual assistant came to recognise the desk lady's death.

"Vous n'avez vu personne?" … "You saw no one?"

"I wasn't there when it happened." … "Il n'était pas là quand c'est arrivé."

"Où étiez-vous?" … "Where were you?"

"I was in the Old Nice." … "Il était dans le Vieux-Nice."

"Alors comment se fait-il que vous soyiez arrivé si tôt après le meurtre et le vol?" … "How is it you arrived so quickly after the murder and robbery?"

"Robbery? There was none. The place was only ravaged!" … "Il n'y a pas eu vol. La chambre était seulement ravagée."

The policeman stared Harry hard in the eyes, but Harry wasn't intimidated. "Répondez à la question." … "Answer the question."

Harry sighed dejectively. "I knew something was wrong." … "Il sentait que quelque chose n'allait pas."

The officer snorted. "Il _sentait_, hein?" He barked out laughing. "Qui est la personne qui était là au moment du vol?" … "Who was there at the moment of the robbery?"

Harry looked back at the officer and stared him straight in the eyes. "Hermione Granger, my friend. We were here for business with another friend of ours and she was supposed to stay here until we came back." … "Hermione Granger, son amie. Ils étaient ici avec un de leurs amis pour leur travail, elle devait rester ici jusqu'à ce qu'ils reviennent."

The policeman scribbled all of their conversation in a notebook, scratched the bridge of his nose with the tip of his ballpoint pen, and then nodded. "Bon. On va la retrouver. Soyez sans crainte." … "They'll find her. Don't worry."

Harry muttered under his breath, "Yeah, and what if she's been kidnapped by two angry goblins? _That's_ something to worry like fuck about."

The assistant turned to him at the door. "You will be okay?"

Harry smiled back sarcastically. "Sure." He pushed his way out and then roamed the streets aimlessly, feeling like a pea in a sea of carrots. Thankfully he wasn't out to do nothing about Hermione's disappearance. And, thankfully, he still had that wee muggle picture of her in his wallet. "Hi, speak English? Have you seen this woman?"

#

"So… basically, we're looking for an old crackpot who believes he's the wizard of Oz?"

Ron coughed painfully as he pushed spider webs away. "Wizard of _what_?" They had found a tunnel opening in the yard, under the _Couvent de la Visitation-Saint-François_ and were now attempting to find their way inside the maze that were the tunnels under the convent.

"Oh, come on… _'We're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz, because, because, because, because, becauuuuuuuse…'_" She trailed off, her giddy childish smile fading. "Your childhood must 'ave been dreadful," she finished.

Ron rolled his eyes (_Muggles…_), then rummaged in his pocket, producing the wizarding map of France. "Good." The 'Ron' dot was getting steadily closer to the red one.

"What's that?" But Ron hid the map before she could see. "Aw, you're awful."

Ron ignored that last one (_Women…_) and held his wand aloft before him.

Nathalie was not one to keep quiet for very long, it seemed. "Where did you get that? It's great. It must 'ave been really expensive to last this long. I 'aven't been in a joke shop since my first year of _lycée_, but you know those things… They're usually not good. Use it once and it is soon breaking."

Ron halted, quite irritated by now, and whirled on her. "Okay," he groaned. "_Stop_ talking or I'll…" _hex you into tomorrow? Petrify you? That wouldn't work._ "…leave you here and enjoy the thought that you're lost in the dark, talking your head off 'til it falls."

Nathalie hmph'ed and retorted loftily, "I know my way back better than you will ever wish."

A thump resounded suddenly in the passage and they both froze. Ron was about to rejoinder with a mild curse but he sprang forth just as suddenly. As he ran he tossed over his shoulder in an exaggerated whisper, "Keep quiet or we're both meat."

He came to a halt in front of a brightly-lit doorframe with an old unhinged door and hid next to it, motioning for Nathalie to do the same, behind him.

"Where's your gun?" she mouthed around her fear, and Ron could scarcely believe that he'd allowed her into this. Her fear began coiling around him, but he paid more heed to his instincts.

Ron felt the tension he always felt before cornering someone. One mistake and you were thrown off the loop, he'd learned that pretty quick. He ignored Nathalie's silent question and then moved into view, though the figures hunched in the farthest corner of the room couldn't see him. An old man was kneeling before another whom Ron could not see the face of. They were unaware of his and Nathalie's presence, and it was when the tall man snarled something in French and closed his long fingers around the old man's throat that Ron sprang into action.

"Freeze! Unhand his throat this instant!" he yelled, enjoying this little bit of field work just a tad.

The tall man slowly looked sidelong at Ron, giving a little sneer as the crumpled man started crying a litany of pleadings. "S'il vous plaît, s'il vous plaît, je reviendrai au pouvoir! Je leur dirai que j'ai été sous l'emprise d'un Impero," (Please, please, I'll come back to power! I'll tell them I was under the Imperio) the kneeling man wailed tearfully. "Ils ne vous pourchasseront plus. S'il vous plaît, pitié… Pitié pour un vieil homme." (They won't be after you anymore. Please, have pity… Have pity for an old man.)

The tall dark man spoke in a heavily foreign accent. "Languedor, vous n'êtes qu'un lâche… une saleté… Vous m'avez volé, presque ruiné."

Ron glanced back at Nathalie during this exchange; she was shyly looking on, and he was lost… so lost… He should have listened to Hermione and learned French long ago. "What the bloody hell is going on here?"

The tall man smiled and Ron saw two long, pointed fangs. He didn't need explaining on that point. Now he understood _clearly_. He turned to Nathalie, pointing to the old man Carmerana had called Languedor - the French Minister for Magic. "Is he the man you saw last night?"

She looked terrified yet didn't know what was going on. Was this a very sick dream she was having? "Y-yes," she said with a shaky voice, staring straight at the duke's fangs. He would have wagered a lot of money on her thinking this was a really bad joke.

Jacques Languedor smiled very weakly. "I was drunk, _monsieur_."

Ron held the vampire at bay with his wand but did not move. "Why have you been missing?" he asked the old minister, who began whimpering and sniffling.

"He poison me, _monsieur_. I was kidnap by other vampires. Now he want to kill me."

"Nonsense," said the vampire with a surprisingly calm voice. "This man is thoroughly insane."

Ron squared his shoulders and regarded the vampire sullenly. "Duke Carmerana, you are under arrest as authorised by the French and English law enforcement order. You have the right to remain silent; everything you say can and will be used against you. If you try to escape, I can and will do everything in my power to restrain you. As a last resort I have the right to kill you."

Carmerana cackled vehemently. "I laugh before death."

"You won't when I make use of the section eight spells, designed just for your kind," Ron snarled abruptly.

The vampire's sickly skin seemed to pale further.

Ron suddenly whirled on Nathalie and Petrified her.

#

At last Fleur spoke, "Evanidus." The door disappeared into thin air and she immediately strode inside a dimly lit room where dark, hooded figures sat huddled around a large, round table.

But Hermione hadn't followed. She stood with her mouth agape, and then stuttered, "H-how did you know about the Evanidus?"

Fleur silently sat at an apparently designated seat and smiled warmly at Hermione before turning to the hooded figure that stood before the roaring fire in the grate. "Elle est là, maître… de son plein gré." (She is here, master… of her own free will.)

"Bien," answered the raspy voice of an old man. The figure turned and then he scrutinised Hermione, talking in a low voice to Fleur. "Sait-elle le motif?" (Does she know why?)

"Non, j'ai fait comme vous vouliez." (No, I did as you told me.)

"Bien, expliquez-lui, maintenant." (Good, tell her, now.)

Fleur nodded and stood, and with her a vivid light sprang to life, plunging the room and the hidden figures in a warm light. "This is the Terces Compound. We are graduates of Beauxbâtons who rejoined when we heard of the Ministry's corruption."

Still Hermione was astonished - and mystified. "But how did you know about the Evanidus?"

Fleur bowed her head and folded her hands, speaking quickly like she'd been dying to tell her all along. "Many of us worked in the Ministry before Jacques Languedor released the Bill in 2007. When it 'appened, we seeked _refuge_ at our old school. It is now closed before Madame Maxime died and there are no students to teach anymore… She was killed by _Duc_ Carmerana's minions."

The news struck hard at Hermione, who sagged against the doorframe and rubbed her face with a trembling hand. "I'm sorry, she was-"

"No matter," Fleur interrupted. "We know how and why people are disappearing." She nodded to the hooded figure in front of her, who sighed and stood, removing his hood slowly, as though he really didn't want to.

Hermione gasped. "You!"

René Dumoucheron stood at the round table, looking pained and like he wished very hard to not be there. "We meet again," he said as sole mark of greeting. "I was very relieved when I 'eard the renowned _Docteure_ Granger was coming to France with the Aurors who 'ad been assigned to the Evanidus case months ago. It meant that they were going to really 'elp us this time. You see, I was 'oping you would work on it, that is why I came to see you at the _ministère_."

Confused, Hermione frowned. "I don't think I understand."

Dumoucheron breathed in heavily and came to stand before her, his forehead glistening with sweat. "_Mademoiselle_ Granger, I see every invoice on my desk before the owls deliver them away," he said with a raise of his eyebrows to emphasise the meaning of what he was saying.

Hermione held her breath hard. This was all so much information at once: this held many implications. "Who created the bacterium?" she found herself blurting out.

René held her gaze, his eyes an intense brown. "A witch who goes by the name of P. Malfoy."

Hermione blinked many times - ran names in her head in quick succession - and then the puzzle came together at once. _Malfoy got engaged to Pansy in 2006, it was all over the _Prophet_. She could have very well used Malfoy's name illegally before she even was really a Mrs. Malfoy._ "How did she get her hands on the original copy?"

"The first time the bacterium was created," René said in a comforting, calm voice, "the magical authorities seized the recipe and keeped it locked in the Auror 'eadquarters in a vault where they keep the folders for closed cases until they are destroyed. I assume an Auror stole it and gave it to _madame_ Malfoy, because no one is suppose to know the password than the _ministre_ and the assigned Auror."

Hermione frowned, trying to calculate things in her head, but none of it made any sense. "Did it ever seem like the Minister was interested in what was inside the vault?"

A man stood and straightened his back. "_Non, Madame,_ I never saw 'im." He nodded curtly at her surprised stare. "Normand Chavignol. _À votre service_."

Fleur spoke up then, explaining his role in the affair. "Normand is the Auror who was assigned to the vault's safety," she explained briefly.

Hermione nodded, silently thanking Fleur for being so efficient in this roomful of mostly non-bilingual men and women. "It's likely that the Minister sent someone instead."

Normand snorted. "I would 'ave saw 'im."

Hermione gazed back at Chavignol with a look she intended cold and scolding. "Someone who could have broken into the Ministry while it was closed at night," Hermione added for clarification, rubbing her face and pondering her idea as it developed all over her mind, sending her jolts of excitement like she hadn't had in the last few years. "The same happened during Voldemort's second rise to power," she explained as a shudder ran through the small group of twelve.

The old man Fleur had addressed earlier calmly rose from his throne-like seat, and the others grew silent and bowed their heads respectfully. "That is very possible," he said, then frowned. "What do you know about the Evanidus?"

Hermione looked at the group with some uncertainty. Something about them was strange; disarming, even. "I know that seventeen wizards have disappeared since 2007. I know it only affects men in their twenties, and that it travels by means of water ways."

The man stared hard back at her. "Do you know what their _métiers_ were?"

_Their jobs?_ Hermione swallowed hard. She'd known something was missing.

"Your silence speaks loud," the old wizard said serenely. "They were all against the Bill. They were Ministry employees. They also worked with us."

"With the Compound?" He nodded. Hermione finally stepped into the room and was barely aware of the door reappearing behind her, thus erasing her chances of being able to walk out on her own. The old man conjured a spare chair to the round table, and Hermione sat with them all.

"Augustin Paracelse," the old man introduced himself. "I met your headmaster at Wizengamot meetings." He smiled warmly, valiantly, and Hermione felt herself grow fond of him.

"He died during the War," she said flatly without reverence.

Paracelse bowed his head respectfully. "I am sorry to hear this. Dumbledore was a good man, an even greater wizard."

She smiled sadly and heaved a heavy breath, one that really hurt - old scars were hard to mend. "What am I to help you with?"

Fleur lifted her head silently. "Mrs. Malfoy is _introuvable_."

#

"What do you mean, Parkinson was - that filthy little bitch…" Harry groaned, pushing past Ron before Ron yanked him back and sat him on an infirmary bed.

"Whoa there," Ron said, running his hand over his face and then his hair with the air of someone exhausted after too many nights spent wide awake. Fuck, even after the end he felt like shite. "Hermione's fine. Parkinson was… she was, er, about to… about to curse Hermione, but I blasted her away just in time."

Harry grunted. "Yeah, and what if you hadn't been there, eh? She'd have been in a right nice place now, wouldn't she?"

"Harry," Ron scolded, then dropped his voice when a nurse passed by them. "Harry, the point is, I was." He raised his brows as if to express the sentiment held behind his eyes. There wasn't much he could do to tame Harry's reckless temper. The bastard had a hero complex the size of Scotland and felt guilty whenever someone suffered around him - blamed himself, even. "Hermione needs you to be calm… for her sake, mate. She can't see you in this state; you look like shite."

Harry snorted, a grin adorning his face at last. "You don't look too good yourself."

Ron burst out laughing. There was his friend, a burn mark on his cheek and his scar a vivid red against his snow white skin. His clothes were tattered and his pants were torn at the cuffs. His hair stood in all odd angles, and his glasses were cracked and stood askew on his bleeding nose. "Hey, I saved the life of a damsel in distress today."

A chuckle bubbled out of Harry's throat. "Ha, I saved all of your sorry arses and killed my evil nemesis. How's that for saving lives?" he mocked Ron, who rolled his eyes and shook his head.

It wasn't a surprise to Ron that Harry finally came out with something to laugh about after all of this. In fact, Ron was glad that Harry was joking about it - he knew the bloke didn't have a great esteem of himself, so this was refreshing. "Come on," Ron said. "Let's go see Hermione."

When the flap moved sideways, Hermione jumped, startled, and then a smile split her fact at the sight of her visitors. "Harry! I heard about Voldemort. Oh, how are you?" she cried immediately, springing forth to hug Harry, who laughed and flailed his arms to keep her at bay - unsuccessfully.

"Stop fussing over me, I'm fine," he laughed. "But you're strangling me."

Hermione bit her lip and blushed, jerking away instantly. "Sorry," she laughed. "Everyone's planning to throw a feast for you tonight. Luna's writing her 'last wartime article', as she said herself." She sighed happily. "I'm so proud of you, Harry." Then she turned to Ron and added, "And of you, too."

Harry's eyes hardened as she threw a grateful nod to Ron. "Speaking of him… what the hell happened in the forest?"

Hermione glanced once more at Ron, who only smiled meekly and shrugged. "Harry, I… Goodness, Harry, I'm okay!"

"She could have got you!" Harry cried, eyes bulging out.

Hermione glanced once again at Ron and replied quietly, unconvincingly, "She didn't."

Harry grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, "You should have stayed in the infirmary where you were supposed to be. What would have happened if Ron hadn't happened to pass by?" Harry cried back, face livid. "My God, Hermione, that was so irresponsible of you!"

Hermione's eyes widened defensively; she'd seen Harry mad before, but never at her. It was all directed at her, this time. She knew it was fear she was feeling, but by God she wasn't going to let him patronise her so.

"Harry, we needed rosewood, you know there was some in that forest. What did you want me to do? Let someone get entirely consumed by a stupid curse? That someone was - is one of your most devoted soldiers. I won't get patronised by you, Harry James Potter. A lot of you were approached and threatened by Death Eaters; why don't you go and patronise them all?"

After this she panted, having lost her impulse, and from the corner of her eye she saw Ron fidget uncomfortably as though he was unsure what to do: comfort her or run away altogether?

Harry stared hard at her and then sighed lamely, considering. "You're right. I'm a prat for thinking you were the only one of our lot. It's just… you're Hermione, you know?" he finished with an uneasy grin and a small roll of the shoulders.

Hermione sighed, too, then pushed out of her tent toward the infirmary, horrible thoughts of Pansy and what she should have done still haunting her… but she would never tell a soul. She was tending to a sound sleeping patient with amputated legs when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"He's just feeling guilty," a warm voice drifted to her ears from the foyer.

Hermione bit the inside of her cheek, turning to face him. Her mouth wasn't working; it was all slack. Finally she worked around it. "How do you know?"

Ron shrugged, smiling just that bit enough to console her. "I have a sort of hunch, if you will."

She giggled softly. "You shouldn't probe people's thoughts without their consent. You know it's considered violation of privacy."

He grinned impishly, then sobered. "I'm trying to learn but sometimes I'm just too curious." He winked, pausing. "Look, don't let it haunt you."

Her smile faltered and finally faded. "I should correct myself, then: you shouldn't probe people's thoughts, period."

He gently grabbed her arms, rubbing up and down soothingly, making her skin tingle and warm; she hadn't realised she was cold to the touch until now. "I didn't probe, I just know." Then he laced his fingers in her hair. "I know how it feels, Hermione, being unable to push something out of your mind. How do you I feel when I see someone die before my eyes? I have to struggle any way I can to not feel the curse coursing through me when it's aimed at them. And then I'm haunted until the next kill."

Hermione's heart had cracked open, she was sure of it by now, after his heartfelt revelation. "It's all in the past," she worked out. "You shouldn't speak like we're still at war."

He smiled indulgently. "You're right. Come on, let's take Harry to the feast."

She broke away from his loose embrace. "Just a minute," Hermione said. "I won't take long." And then she went to another occupied bed and gingerly sat beside the patient's sleeping form, taking his vitals and temperature, and noting them on the clipboard at the foot of his bed.

#

"Yes, I see woman you look for," offered a tall woman of a burly build. She pointed with a fat index finger to a back street and shrugged. "I see 'er go wit' old woman, but never come out."

Harry squinted toward the dark alleyway and thanked her briskly before stalking toward it, a young family exiting it as he arrived. _Whoever would come back here of their own will? It's so desolate and…_ He interrupted his thoughts when he noticed a faint circle etched in the cracked cement.

"Strange," he whispered to himself. _I've never seen perfect circles etched in cement._ He turned his head sharply when the street lamp next to it flickered on and off.

An odd feeling washed over him at this sight, but he shook his head. "Must be the stress finally making into ye olde head," he muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose. _Where are you, Hermione?_

Before he could blink, a young woman materialised before him and breezed away, muttering angrily to herself. _Okay, this sort of thing only happens when the magical world is involved in some way._

"Miss! _Madame!_… Hey, you!" he called, sprinting up to her before she could drown herself in the swarm of people on the main street.

She stopped short, gave him the cold once-over, and raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow, obviously very annoyed that a young bloke had halted her. "What?" she snarled in a thick accent.

Harry suddenly realised he looked very foolish, about to ask her where she'd come from and how, so he opted for another option, digging in his muggle coat and extricating a muggle photograph of Hermione. "Have you seen this woman? She went missing today. Perhaps -"

"I 'ave not saw her. Now _excusez-moi_, I am very _pressée_."

Harry grabbed her wrist before she could flee, and pulled her back sharply. "Look, how do you get through that portal? She may have gone somewhere she feels safe."

The woman stared at Harry's face and then yelped comically. "I am sorry, _monsieur_ Potter. I thinked you are not a _magicien_."

Harry waved his hand dismissively. "No matter. Where does it lead? How do you get through?" he asked excitedly.

The woman jutted out her chin toward the circle and lamppost at the end of the alleyway. "Stand in _centre_ of circle an' touch the _lampadaire_. It leads to the _Vallée des Lumières_." And then she was gone. But Harry at least knew where he was to look next.

#

"Perfect aim," snarled the dead soul.

Ron panted as he turned to face the timeless man. _I shouldn't have looked at her, I haven't had practice in months._ "Oh," he replied with equal snarkiness, "that was only practice for when I have to hit you, dear Dracula." He jerked his head toward the door, motioning for the men to follow him out of the dungeons. In a quick, swift motion, he bent and picked up Nathalie's immobile body and hoisted her over his shoulder. She'd kill him when she woke up, he was damn willing to take the bet.

"Where are we going?" asked the then-Minister.

Ron was too tempted to take the bait. "Scotland Yard." He rolled his eyes heavenward. "To the Aurors, what do you think? He'll be the star amongst them all, I can almost smell it."

"But… but what about me?" he whimpered suddenly.

"You'll be a star all right; you'll probably just have to get used to the hate mail in your cell." Ron pushed the man harshly forward and took out his wand. "Come on."

They quickly exited the shortest way out, and Ron was almost on the last step when Carmerana glowered backward and attempted to escape through the woods next to the convent. Ron cursed under his breath and did two things at once: he lowered Nathalie onto the steps and shot a Petrify at Languedor before running after his vampire friend. _Why do they always attempt escape when the first door shows up?_ He really, really wished Harry was there. _Oh well, this is practice._ The bright orange spell fired out of his wand and the next thing Ron knew was that his Duke was falling flat on his nose, stiff as a stick. _Oh well, that was mildly fun…_

Ron dragged Carmerana's body next to the others and sighed wearily. _Here goes nothing…_ He uttered three Levitation spells and regarded their floating bodies with a mildly bored expression.

As he finally trundled at the Ministry, there was at first nothing very different - the entire building seemed to be run by morons, Ron noted sourly - but then Ministry officials recognised Ron's prisoner Jacques the corrupt culprit, and then realisation stirred and Ron's Russian prisoner was also noticed and ultimately recognised.

#

"Bienvenue à la Vallée des Lumières."

Harry gazed upon the new development, seeing nothing but startling beauty around him. Great elves were carving their trademark leaves and beautiful designs on the frontal wall of a new shoppe in front of him. A witch in bright pink robes was charming her lace _atelier_ while she sold her work to passers-by.

Harry walked through this mass that reminded him so much of either Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade - he couldn't choose. Maybe it was a little bit of both… It was obvious that this valley was not a strictly wizarding region - probably more of a parallel world like Diagon Alley, he thought.

He regarded the shoppes around him, but still the question of finding Hermione was too important to forget. He was sure that she was wandering around here somewhere, and if his theory of her broken wand revealed to be true after all, then she was probably buying a new one already. And all he'd have to do was find -

Ah, but there it was: "Devanne, baguettes magiques, depuis 1853." (Devanne, magic wands, established 1853.)

The creaking door dinged as Harry pushed it open… to find the shoppe nearly empty. There, at the desk, were two figures engaged in discussing something in hushed tones. As soon as they saw Harry, they interrupted themselves and eyed him warily.

"Puis-je vous être d'aide?" (Can I help you?) asked the man behind the desk as he collected scrolls of parchment and stored them hastily in his desk drawers.

"Er, désolé," Harry started in his shy French, "je ne parle pas français bien." (Er, sorry, I don't speak French well) He ran his hand in his hair in a quick, nervous scratch, and stepped further into the dimness of the small, dusty shoppe, remembering buying his first wand at _Ollivander_'s and feeling something pretty akin to this awkwardness floating round him right now.

The shoppe owner nodded understandingly. "My English fails me sometime," the bearded man explained a bit foolishly. "Can I be of 'elp to you?"

Harry stepped next to the young man who'd been speaking to Devanne before he had come in - he was scrutinising Harry. Harry scratched the back of his head again. "Yes, I was hoping you could tell me if you saw a young woman with short, curly brown hair come in to buy a wand today."

Devanne seemed to turn over his memory and probe it for this description. "No. I remember my customer years after they buy the wand. I don't remember 'er." He seemed to study Harry's face then, and light flooded his wrinkly features when he realised who he was speaking to. He grabbed Harry's neighbour's sleeve, and tugged hard. "Armand, c'est Harry Potter!" A smile broke out on his long face, and he slapped his desk board heartily as one would upon seeing an old friend. "What bring you 'ere, _monsieur_ Potter?"

Harry glanced at his neighbour, a thin and tall teenager with shaggy, mousy hair who still hadn't spoken, and reckoned it wasn't exactly top secret to talk about a friend's disappearance. "She's my friend - Hermione. She disappeared today; someone told me they had seen her last in the alleyway, and I suppose she's come here to find people she might know. She's lost her wand, too, or maybe it broke, so I thought she'd have come here to get a new one… Do you know of any place where she could have gone, anyone here who would have taken her somewhere?"

The bloke beside Harry snorted loudly. Harry turned to face him as he offered him a sarcastic laugh. "Do you _know_ what go on out 'ere? She could be wit' _anyone_!"

Harry sighed impatiently. "I _know_ that, believe me. We came here to help bring back the peace in your country; maybe she's been taken… Do you know of any place where she could be held or… or anything?"

The bloke named Armand shrugged and shook his head. "I don't know."

But Devanne was thoughtful as he ventured into an entirely different answer. "There _is_ one place… I was told there was a _bande_ of person contesting against the _ministère_. They had or still have 'eadquarters at Beauxbâtons."

Harry sighed. Why couldn't things ever be _simple_? "Okay, how do we get there and how _long_ will it take?" he asked dully, certain that there was no hope at all of finding Hermione yet at the slow pace he was going.

Devanne gestured to Armand. "He will take you."

The young wizard jolted and eyed Devanne with an uncertain glance. Both men stared each other down, then Armand shrugged and stalked out of the store. Harry promptly followed him outside, then fell into step next to him as they made their way toward the mountains. "Who are you?" Harry finally asked, glancing sidelong. Who was this man and what had he been doing in Devanne's shoppe? He couldn't possibly have needed a new wand; already he was producing an old wand, battered and worn at the gripping end.

"Devanne," Armand started, rubbing his nose gingerly, "he is my uncle. I am starting to learn the art of wand-making. I am Armand Rochedor." He paused uneasily, as if not sure he wanted to go on. "What are you doing in France - helping us?"

Harry stared ahead as they climbed the heavily grassed mountain. "I'm here for Auror business…" _Can I trust him?_ he asked himself as he glanced at the younger chap. He seemed harmless, really.

Armand grunted with feeling. "The Aurors don't do a lot these days," he remarked coolly, kicking at a rock heartlessly.

"I know," Harry said cautiously. "I'm not working with or for your Ministry on this one… at least, not tightly. You've probably heard of the disease called Evanidus…?" At Armand's sharp nod, he continued. "We're trying to find the culprit… or rather, I _was_ before my friend Hermione disappeared. I've left my partner Ron to do the job."

Armand's thick brows knitted together. "You 'ave plunged into the dark underworld, you know. A lot of country tried to 'elp, but no one stay long to find the _miscréant_." He shook his head sadly; sad for his country perhaps. It was hard to face the reality face to face sometimes, especially at a young age. "You really think you can find the dark one be'ind this?"

Harry's lips tinned into a flat line. "We know who created this mess."

Armand nodded dully, his eyes a flat sky blue. "_Duc_ Carmerana, I know. 'e created this… this mess wit' the Evanidus, and now 'e run away."

Harry eyed his companion with a new eye. "You know something," he said as it dawned on him. "You must,

Armand only shrugged, coming to a halt at the foot of the hill, in front of a shimmering lake. He stared at it, seeing the bottom and yet not quite able to figure out the ghost-like shadows apart from the vegetation. "I know what everyone know." He whirled on Harry expectantly. "But you seem to know enough."

"I left Ron when we were on Carmerana's trail."

Armand chewed on his cheek and turned to the ever calm lake, watching the water ripple and reflect the skies and them. "You should know something…"

"What?"

"I worked for Languedor a little when Beauxbâtons closed."

#

Hermione gaped silently, then felt the wheels turn in her mind. If Pansy was nowhere to be found, then Malfoy probably knew something. And if he knew something, then he was bound to have disappeared as well. "Have you searched for Mal - Draco? He's her fiancé. He probably knows something."

Fleur shook her pretty head, her hair bouncing from left to right very quickly over her fatigued face. "He disappeared, too. Right in front of my eyes. Poof. I thought maybe he drank some infected water, too, but the fading process is slow in those cases."

Hermione pinched her eyes closed, feeling the beginnings of a headache slicing its way in her brain, and sighed. "Was there anyone besides you in the room you were in? Or was there anyone else in the house?"

Fleur seemed to think, but she soon shook her head again. "No. 'e was alone. But I did feel a presence when I was speaking to 'im. Very faintly. And sometimes he didn't even look at me. I was a bit disturbed."

Hermione slowly paced the length of the room, very faintly aware of twelve pairs of eyes on her back. Then she came to a sudden halt. _Of course!_ "Draco was Pansy's Secret Keeper."

Fleur's eyes sent her a puzzled expression. "I don't think I understand. Draco wouldn't 'ave disappeared if -" Then her face lit. "Oh!"

Hermione nodded excitedly, smiling brightly. "_Unless_, you mean. Unless Pansy put a Fidelitas on him as well."

Fleur's words were tumbling out of her mouth as she said, "Then they both can't be found unless they 'ave told someone else."

Hermione nodded, considering the fair-haired witch's concept very slowly. "Friends, parents, anyone." Then she laughed privately, grimly. "Malfoy couldn't be invisible to everyone without feeling the urge for power eating at him. And he couldn't very well leave his parents in the dark." She turned to Fleur. "I take it you know where Malfoy Manor is?"

The blonde belle nodded but paled white as a parchment sheet. "Yes but -"

"Where is your old Potions Master's classroom?"

Fleur stood up, incredulous. "Er, whatever for?"

Hermione sneered in what she deemed was a very good rendition of Professor Snape. "We need to make some Veritaserum."

#

_"Est-ce que - non, ça ne peut pas être lui."_ (Can it - no, it can't be him.)

_"Mais si, mais si. C'est le ministre!"_ (Yes, yes. It's the minister!)

_"Mais qui c'est, ce type rouquin, là?"_ (But who is that, the redhead type, there?)

_"C'est l'Auror anglais, tu te souviens? Lui et Harry Potter? Ils étaient là pour retrouver le vampire russe et Languedor."_ (It's the British Auror, remember? Him and Harry Potter? They were here to find the Russian vampire and Languedor.)

_"Tu crois qu'ils ont retrouvé Carmerana?"_ (Think they found Carmerana?)

_"Sais pas. Mais le type là-bas, ça pourrait bien être lui."_ (Don't know. But that man there, that could be him.)

_"Aucune idée. Y'a jamais eu de photos de lui publiées."_ (No idea. There weren't any photos published.)

Such was what Ron heard on his way to the Auror Headquarters as he Levitated his prisoners in front of him. Ministry workers were mostly lazing around out of their offices with fags in their mouths, or drinking dark coffee that smelled all through the hallways. Ron was starting to get really irritated at their attitudes. _It's a wonder they even come to work at all. But maybe that's because their wives know nothing about the little thing with Languedor and Carmerana more than a _year_ ago. They must be real wimp-men…_

"Ah, _monsieur_ Wayslé," cried the director of the Auror Headquarters, coming to shake Ron's hand. Then he noticed the floating bodies and his smile faltered considerably. "What is this?" he asked in a newly shaky voice.

"_These_ are the people your stupid people couldn't get by themselves," Ron ground out between his teeth, thinking so many other things but keeping them to himself for the old man's sake. "Harry and I are morons when it comes to speaking French, but we pulled this off without whinging."

"Er, er."

Ron turned to a gaping Auror and seethed out, "Take them to two _different_ cells and then Enervate them."

The old director reddened in the face at Ron's cheekiness. "I call the orders here, young boy! I'm the one who -"

Ron rolled his eyes. "Calm down, I'll be gone in a jiffy. I just want you to know that Harry and I are very grateful for your warm welcome. We couldn't have done this without your very kind help. Ah, and it's _Weasley_, sir. Sorry I've been an arse, but I don't think I deserve your anger. Goodbye." And he Disapparated, still holding Nathalie over his shoulder and winking to a very hot and bothered director.

When he reappeared outside, he slid the dark-haired muggle off his shoulder and Enervated her without preamble. Her eyes fluttered open and then she _shrieked_. "Roger!" She cast a very quick glance around them and then groaned, feeling for her head with both hands.

Ron knelt before her and immediately brushed her hand away, feeling her forehead for himself. He knew it must knock muggles out just the same as wizards, but _they_ weren't used to being knocked out of the blue. "Are you okay?" he asked, feeling the guilt rise in him as well as the pain from her. He'd only protected her, he rationalised. He'd only ensured that she wouldn't ask questions later, but now he wasn't sure it had been a very swell idea; it had been pretty wishful thinking. "I'm sorry," he added as an afterthought.

She coughed, and her throat sounded hoarse - being out cold had a tendency to make one's mucus dry out. "I'm all right. Where are we?"

"Er," he said, reddening. "No clue."

She snorted abruptly. "You don't seem to know very much, do you?"

That shocked him, it did. He blinked at her, and then chuckled, rubbing his hair. "I really do hate when people say that."

"Really?" Nathalie cocked her head, frowning as some hair fell over her eye.

"Yeah. My friend Hermione used to remind me this oh so surreptitiously pretty much everyday until…" He trailed off, his eyes clouding over. "Listen, about before…"

She waved her hand. "It's okay."

"No, no!" His English seemed to fail him, he realised with frustration. "You need to know the truth, because I hate that I did what I did - it was a stupid wizard's reaction."

Nathalie stared at him with a concentrating expression, and then nodded solemnly, slowly. "Okay."

"Those two men… one was the French Minister for Magic, the other was a vampire duke from Russia who contributed to this huge corruption affair with the French Minister. With me so far?"

Nathalie blinked very slowly, then frowned. "I think I was right when I thought you are a serious mental case."

Ron shook his head with a frustrated growl and grabbed her arms, looking very nearly mad as he said, "My name's not Roger Smith, it's Ron Weasley. I'm an Auror from the British Ministry of Magic. My friend Harry Potter and I were sent here to investigate on the corruption case… Don't you ever wonder why there are so many cases of unexplainable accidents in your world? Fires, deaths, destroyed houses -"

"That happens everyday," Nathalie persisted frantically.

"Not unexplainable cases, they don't." He paused, gazing so intently at her that she had to wonder. "Please believe me. I'm not a liar, I just want you to know the truth and believe me, because you saw things today that not everyone ever gets to witness. I didn't want you to get involved but now you _have_ to know."

"I'm not sure I -"

"Please."

She swallowed heavily and then picked herself up gingerly, watching as Ron stood up and looked imploringly at her as she stretched to her full height. "Take me home," she said, glancing around them as though she might see a dashing figure with a blast of ethereal light from his world, and then up at the darkening skies. "I know it's dark and dangerous." And Ron blew out a breath. And he was grateful.

#

"Are you sure this is the place?"

"Yes, _monsieur_ Malfoy Summoned me here when -"

"Draco? He couldn't be arsed to lend a helping hand to those in need."

The ugly woman beside Hermione - Fleur was hidden under the same guise that Hermione had met her in because she feared for her personal protection if Draco were to be in the house - snickered softly. "Except to a beautiful half-veela who's learned the subtle art of _séduction_." She surveyed their surroundings with keen, suspicious eyes. "'e contacted me when Dumoucheron organised a meeting for the old Bastille _prison_, where I'm a Curse Breaker. Months before I 'ad found a hidden door with extremely modern spells. _Monsieur _Malfoy was a donator for the renovation project, and I think 'e grew scared because the day after the meeting was set to discuss the gold he was giving for that particular task I found a laboratory behind that barred door. The parchment was mostly burned, but I found flasks with large amounts of Evanidus."

Hermione actually jumped as the two women walked around a long, thick brick wall that spanned around the perimeter of an abandoned house, that bore decades and decades of washed-out and repainted graffiti - both offending and not. She turned to face Fleur finally. "What did you _tell_ him?"

Fleur shrugged, a hidden grin tugging at her dry and peeling lips. "In my line of work, we need to be politically correct but, like someone we both know, I 'aven't quite reduced myself to being a complete conformist."

Hermione grinned knowingly. Bill Weasley. She stole a glance sideways at her older comrade. "What exactly happened between you two?"

Smiling with a faraway look, Fleur sighed. "Oh, you know… I went to London and lived with him for a while. Then I got my internship and was pushed here and there until I got my job at Tyrions Briseurs de charmes." Her smile faded a bit and she bit her lip, shaking her head sadly. "I wonder what 'e's become."

"Bill?" Hermione smiled almost apologetically. "I'm sorry, I don't know… I haven't seen him since Christmas three years ago." She came to a halt behind Fleur, who'd stopped short in front of a gate behind which the land looked like a dump. Fleur looked at the planks of wood stuck between the stakes and eyed them with an irritated eye.

She sighed. "This is it," she said with finality. Then she turned to Hermione and sadly she said, "Please, I can't think about Bill right now…"

Hermione nodded, understanding the other woman's reasoning perfectly. Bill and Fleur had had to overcome so much, and even though she didn't know the full story, Hermione knew that they'd broken off amiably after the Dark Lord had tortured and killed Fleur's veela grandmother.

Her story had made the rounds at the Great Weasley Table and, although she doubted the legitimacy of half of what she'd heard, she understood quite well Fleur's fear of getting him hurt because of who and what she was.

Being a veela just wasn't all swell and beauty and extravagance… it meant deception for all the men who dared set eyes upon it without knowing its real facet. And danger.

"Okay," Hermione said decisively. "Let's go in there."

#

The older woman sneered, revealing a set of perfectly pearly white teeth and screwing up a button-like nose. "I don't see what more I could tell you. It was disastrous for all of us. I never thought he'd actually die so young."

Hermione saw Fleur raise her eyebrows cryptically out of the corner of her eye. "We have reason to believe that he's not dead, Mrs Malfoy," Hermione said from her perch on a deep forest green loveseat made of expensive dragon hide.

Narcissa's eyes went wide as Galleons and she gasped, her small manicured hand going to her pulpous mouth. "Are you - are you sure?" she squeaked frantically, though a hint of uncertainty and slight cowering ghosted over her features.

She seemed to be listening, her eyes bearing a faraway look, and then her eyes hardened and she jabbed a finger in the air in Hermione's general direction. "Who are you?" Her voice quivered slightly as she spoke, but Hermione was not about to lose her grip on this woman.

Hermione had worked so hard to finally get answers, find the slightest bit of information on this case. It seemed foolish to let it all fall in the mud like that.

"I remember seeing you somewhere." She stared hard at Hermione for a moment, and then her eyes suddenly lit up and she stood up in a huff, straightening her robes with a harsh flick of her bow-like wrists. "I am disgusted, miss Granger. I should have recognised your name the instant you introduced yourself to me…"

Offering Hermione a sneer that would have made any sensitive person crumble in a great weeping mass, she carried on with her tirade. "A mudblood in my residence… you should be ashamed of yourself. I know what you want. I've heard of your work. Finding diseases and such."

She stalked closer to Hermione, her eyes throwing lit daggers. "That one about the little mudblood boy who'd caught the Rockenfeller… All you wanted was to help your kind, when there were far more important cases awaiting your attention."

Hermione's lips were thin as she replied firmly, "People who were not on the brink of death."

The older lady snorted haughtily after a short stare-down between them both. It seemed they were both trying to be as polite as possible - Narcissa's was vehemently swallowed for fear that her kind would be appalled at her lack of hospitality. She breathed in deeply, her bosom dilating considerably as she composed herself. "You know something about my son's whereabouts, then. That is, _if_ he's alive."

Hermione smiled a winner's smile. "Actually, I think I'm certain he's alive… I want to know _where_ Draco is," she said emphatically as his mother protested the usage of her son's given name (_"How _dare_ you? How dare you call him by his name?"_) Hermione simply ignored the woman's protests and urged on. "Malfoy Manor? I can certainly see why he would have stayed home… plenty of rooms to hide in, even though we both know he doesn't _really_ need to hide, now, does he?"

Narcissa's anger burst out of her without her even being able to restrain herself. "This is harassment!" she shrieked. "I will call the Hit Wizards!"

The young witch held her ground with a savage language on the tip of her lips, though she did not use it. "Not if I tell you I know everything about your family's involvement in the Second War, at the very least."

Narcissa scoffed loftily, pulling a long cigarette from her robe pocket and lighting it with the tip of her wand, pulling in a drag immediately. "My husband is still in prison serving his time, if I may very well remind you."

Hermione grinned the most wicked grin she could muster. "I was talking more about _your_ side of the family… all the gold that your family invested in the Dark Lord's operat-"

The older woman's face had crumpled ever so slightly, and she grasped the back of the chair nearest her so hard that her knuckles turned white, as did her face, though very slightly. "What do you want?" she demanded through a whisper, like an old woman grasping for her last breath. Hermione realised she was completely scared below the _façade_.

Hermione turned to Fleur and nodded imperceptibly, then turned back to Narcissa and quickly motioned for the proud lady to sit. "Tell me what you know and I'll make sure that none of that ever leaves this room."

Narcissa bit her perfectly curved and red lower lip and brought her shaky hand to her forehead. "I know nothing at all, I told you."

Fleur brought a tray with two tiny English teacups and offered them to Hermione and Narcissa. Hermione sipped hers contentedly, then looked up to see that Narcissa was only cupping it in her hands as if she were suspicious of its contents. "Drink," Fleur said suggestively. "It helps to calm down."

Narcissa stared at Fleur warily, studying her features very thoroughly. "Do I know you? You seem familiar."

Fleur swallowed hard against the dry ball in her throat. "Maybe," she said slowly, articulating each syllable to draw out her accent so it wouldn't be quite so imprinted in her speech. "I see resemblance between the two of us.."

Perhaps it was the sole idea that they were related or that she simply didn't see any resemblance between them both, but Mrs Malfoy grimaced and brought the cup to her lips and drained the first quarter of it like a deer in headlights. "Now what?" she asked Hermione, who was sitting properly and waiting for the effect of the potion to wear in. It took a little less than five seconds, and then Narcissa's face slackened and she seemed woozy for an instant, her head floating from side to side as in a daze. And then her jaw settled into an expressionless pose.

Hermione tested the potion first. "Are you Draco's mother?"

"Yes," answered the droid-like woman before her.

Fleur settled in her armchair and took out a pad, poising a long feathered quill atop it and whispering a spell to record every word of the conversation.

"Do you have a healthy mother-son relationship with Draco?" Hermione demanded.

"Yes. When Lucius was taken away, Draco was very confused and became even closer with me. When he was young I sat with him and played magical castles with him until his father came back from the Ministry. Then I'd be ousted from the room and Lucius would teach Draco the Dark Arts."

"Did Lucius love Draco?" This was getting to be quite interesting. Hermione had never quite thought the Malfoy family to be a loving - or at least a little loving - one. They had always looked more cold and austere than anything else. Draco himself couldn't have been arsed to show sentiments of compassion in school, let alone of love.

"Lucius wasn't the one who said words of love, I was."

"When he wasn't there?"

"Yes."

Fleur tugged on Hermione's sleeve. "Hermione, time goes by…" she said a bit impatiently, glancing at her watch hastily.

Hermione nodded dutifully. "Right," she said, gathering her thoughts. "When was the last time you spoke to Draco?"

"Just now, before you came."

Hermione grinned and looked around the drawing room as if she could see where Draco or Pansy could be hiding. So many possibilities… They could be right in front of her. "Was Pansy Parkinson with him?"

"Yes."

Hermione felt her blood pump through her ears, the buzzing almost unbearable. _Now,_ she thought to herself with some force.

She could feel their presence, she was so sure of it. The air was thick with something she couldn't quite describe. What was it? Anticipation? Fear? Loathing?

"Where are they now?" Hermione asked, and at once everything and nothing happened.

Narcissa's robotic voice calmly replied, "Right here," as she pointed somewhere in front of her. And suddenly Hermione saw with horror her body crumble to the floor in a heap just as two bodies slowly emerged out of thin air.

Draco's wand was tightly drawn - he was the one who'd Killed his mother - and his expression was completely masked. Pansy shrieked and hurled herself at Hermione, dark manes flying in all places. Fleur jumped in panic and punched Pansy square in the jaw in an access of fear.

Draco still stood there, staring at his mother's lifeless body like a puppet out of commission. Then he slowly turned to the women and regarded the female mess before him: silver-, black- and brown-haired witches screaming and grabbing for each other's throats and hair in an attempt to weaken one another.

He turned back and knelt at his mother's side, closed her lids over her wild eyes with impossible peacefulness, and held her hand, regarding the vestiges of a powerful, if dominated, woman in chilling silence.

#

Harry blinked with wide, disbelieving eyes. Had he heard right? "Come again?" burst out of his mouth as both men halted before an enormous lake.

Armand nodded once slowly, and Harry knew he was in for a revelation or two. "I was 'is _assistant_." Then he gestured toward the lake. "I know things you don't. Like this, this is not what it seem."

Harry shrugged carelessly. "It's a lake like any other."

"No," Armand said proudly, hissing in a breath. "This is Beauxbâtons."

And Harry saw the castle emerge from the water like a dream out of the autumn mist. The breath was powerfully knocked out of him, and he stood there gaping like a fish at what he strongly believed was the single most beautiful castle he had ever seen.

"Come," Armand coaxed him, and Harry dazedly followed him in.

#

Harry was pulled into a huge circular room where eleven shrouded figures already presided at the table, appearing to be in the middle of some sort of discussion.

The eldest man in the room - a man Harry recognised as Augustin Paracelse, one of the members of the Order of Merlin, which rounded up the world's greatest wizards. He turned to Armand just as the door returned to its brick-like quality.

Harry then turned back to face the other wizards and witches in the room and felt all eyes trained on him. "Er, where am I?"

Armand chuckled behind him, a friendly chuckle. "You are in the Terces Compound, Harry Potter."

Whispers erupted and then Augustin Paracelse spoke up again. "Welcome in the Compound, _monsieur_. We were just discussing the possibility of Summoning you here ourselves."

Harry furrowed his brows, confusion written all over his face. What was he doing here and why did Armand bring him to this obviously secret hideout or headquarters of some sort? "Er, whatever for?" he found himself asking.

Paracelse smiled an old man's twinkling smile. "Your friend, _mademoiselle_ Granger, may need all the help she can get."

Harry gasped inwardly - finally! He'd found Hermione! - and regarded the wise wizard with a new eye. "Where is she? Is she all right? Is she alone? What's going on?" he fired at once, too excited to wait for either of them to answer.

Paracelse held up a hand to keep him from asking anymore questions. "She is at Malfoy Manor at the moment. She is fine; one of our members went with her… I think you are well-acquainted with _mademoiselle_ Delacour…?" he said.

Harry couldn't help the laughing scoff from bursting out. "Yeah, we were both Champions at the TriWizard Tournament in 1996. I never expected to hear of her again," he finished, crooking an eyebrow. There was much he hadn't expected to happen, but then… they seemed to always do happen to him in the end.

Paracelse's eyes glimmered familiarly when he spoke next. "Armand, you will take _monsieur_ Potter to _mademoiselle_ Granger immediately."

Armand bowed respectfully to the wise man and walked out, the brick-like door disappearing like mist before him.

But Harry held back, obviously at a loss once more. "What is she doing at Malfoy Manor?"

Paracelse spoke gravely, almost as if he pitied him: "Helping solve a _mystère_."

#

Harry nodded and followed his guide all the way back outside of the castle, where they were connected even better with the surrounding nature than they were inside the vicinity of the castle.

Armand was walking very fast, and Harry was starting to become lost as he veered left to follow the French wizard along the lake and toward a small forest. "Whoa whoa whoa," Harry panted when he finally stopped to look back to Harry. "Where are we going like that?"

Armand whirled around and grabbed a firm hold of Harry. Harry only had the chance to catch his breath before feeling the familiar lurch start at the pit of his stomach. And then they were walking on solid ground again. Different, yes, but solid, nonetheless.

"Where have we ended up?" Harry continued.

Armand walked along the edge of a rusting gate, appearing to look for something that would allow them to get in. "Malfoy Manor," he explained quickly with a grunt.

"Funny," Harry snorted derisively. "I always thought Draco lived in a manor, not a trash dump," he mused to himself, surveying their smelly surroundings. "Malfoy always bragged about his… grand mansion."

Armand waved his hand impatiently, mumbling instructions to himself in a broken or slang-ish French - Harry couldn't figure out much of it in any case for it was spoken too fast - and then he gasped and his wand was in his hand, and apparently he'd just opened the gate and Harry was finally able to see beyond the illusion.

"Malfoy Manor," Armand repeated in a murmur as though the imposing structure, no longer a small abandoned cottage, had drawn the breath out of him.

And right then Harry knew at least one thing: Malfoy may always have been a right bastard, but he'd bragged about his mansion with good reason.

Armand was tugging at Harry's sleeve again, and Harry was jolted out of his awe. "Come," the French hissed, and Harry complied without a word.

#

Ron was anything but someone who could take empty, awkward silences. All through his marriage he would hide away to avoid having to face Vi's love and have it thrown full force into his face without his being ready. Whenever he came out of his office or was back from an extra shift he would have taken willingly, he practically forced those silences upon the both of them. _It's all for the better_, he would keep telling himself. Such a lie, he saw it now.

Nathalie was sitting across from him, hidden under a patch of shadows, staring at her fingers to avoid having to look at him. He reasoned that it was probably like this for every muggle who suddenly came into contact with the magical world in one way or another. It was all so easy to hear it, but he reckoned that processing it may take more than a "yes" and an "I get it". He couldn't really understand what must be going through her mind at the moment, and the one person he knew that would be able to was nowhere to be found.

_Gods, I hope Harry's found her_, he thought before raking a hand through his hair and letting his eyes roam over Nathalie's small apartment, boxes lying in one corner of the cramped drawing room with captions like "Cuisine", "Bibelots" and "Salle de bains".

"So, um," Nathalie finally mumbled, risking a glance. "That's a… _real_ wand?"

Ron startled, and this caused the wand in question, hanging limply from his fingers, to drip with surprised orange sparkles. "Oh, uh, yeah. We, uh, wave it around and stuff." Oh Gods, he wanted to bash his head.

She was wearing a very peculiar expression, one of awe mixed with incredulity. It looked like it was hard to assimilate that there was another world co-existing alongside hers. "You're a wizard, then." It was less a question than a pure statement, uttered with a crease to her forehead.

"Yeah," Ron answered plainly. "I'm sort of a detective for our kind. Your muggle detectives couldn't solve our cases even if they tried their damnedest."

Nathalie blinked in confusion. "Muggle?" she asked.

Ron coughed. "Er, non-magical folk." She nodded, as if that explained everything, though it didn't, not really.

Another long silence ensued, during which Ron was pretty sure it was time to leave Nathalie now that she was safe and sound. But she spoke again when Ron started to get up to exit in proper muggle fashion - he'd already shaken her up by Apparating them both to her apartment, he was not going to freak her out further by exiting the same way. "Wait," she said, raising a hand to stop him. "You said something about a woman earlier…"

Ron frowned, sitting on a rocking chair and leaning forward to place his hands together in front of his face. "I told you about Harry, but not… oh yeah, I guess I did," he muttered, raking his hand through his hair again. "Er, I can't remember… what did I say about Hermione?" he asked tiredly.

Nathalie stood and went to sit by him on the armrest, resting her palm on his shoulder in a friendly manner. "You said she used to say you didn't know a lot about anything until… Until when?"

Ron felt the weight of her hand upon him and glanced sidelong at her to gauge her, just a very little bit… not enough that he'd be caught off-guard like hell like the last time he'd gauge a woman upon meeting her, but enough that he'd know what he'd be up against and be fully prepared. What he felt, though, was a perfectly comfortable caressing sliver of friendship, and he breathed deeply in relief.

Settling himself comfortably against the pillow thrown behind his back on the rocking chair, Ron rummaged through his memories and allowed himself to relive some of those wonderful and not-so-wonderful moments passed in Hermione's presence. "Hermione is a bossy know-it-all… or at least that is what I used to say every time she vexed me or seemed completely insane in my mind. It's really in sixth year at Hogwarts - that our magic school in Britain - that we both started to understand each other. We harried each other off every moment we could, or that's what it seemed, until I started having these giant headaches."

Nathalie squeezed his shoulder inadvertently. "Sorry. Is that normal, even for people like you? I mean, I started getting migraines in university because I worked and studied so much."

Ron pondered the question in earnest. "Well, I took every potion that exists that would have taken away the biggest migraine in history, but nothing worked for me because I was starting to become an Empath, and I wasn't embracing my powers, or at least I didn't want to feel anything."

"What is that?" the woman asked curiously, seemingly entranced with his story.

Ron paused, not really sure how to explain to her at this point. "Er, an Empath is someone whose sense of reading emotions is heightened by actually having the ability to feel and read people's emotions." He coughed, embarrassed, at her slightly frowning face. "You understand this?"

Nathalie nodded slowly. "Yes, I think…" Lifting her face, she glanced up at him. "So you are oversensitive, yes?"

"_Hyper_sensitive, yes," Ron corrected, staring out the dirty window of her small drawing room. "Anyway, to make a long story short, Hermione found what was bugging me in the end, and in the meantime we both started to make each other's lives a bit easier," Ron finished with a small smile.

She caught him off-guard with her next question. "You like her?" she blurted out.

Ron burst out in sputters and coughs - he'd swallowed wrong. "Yes - no - well, yes - but… not really that way… Really," he added lamely, for emphasis.

But already Nathalie was laughing and poking at him, so to busy himself - and make him forget the blistering heat he sure felt all over his face - he rummaged through his pockets and pulled out the bit of parchment where the map of France was drawn. And noticed that Harry's dot had just disappeared before his eyes.

"Whoa, hang on…" Ron gasped out loud and quickly zoomed out until the continent appeared in its entirety before him. Harry's dot was now flashing somewhere over Switzerland. Ron didn't know what this mean - the flashing - but he knew one thing: he needed to find out what this meant right now.

"What?"

Ron lifted his nose from the parchment, eyes haggard. "Harry's… I don't…" He trailed off, pocketing the map and staring her down critically. "You'd best come with me. I don't know the first thing about speaking French."

Nathalie smirked like she was about to make a teasing remark, but when Ron grasped her hand and whipped his wand around them to produce a foggy substance that quickly dissolved her apartment and made her navel lift and let in quick succession - like a roller-coaster, she mentally remarked - she shut her mouth and then cried out as a heavy dizzy spell fell over her.

And then they were touching ground again.

Nathalie lifted her eyes and, instantly, she felt the bile rise heavily from her throat. Ron helped her to a kneeling position and pulled her hair away from her eyes, rubbing her back and locking his mind from the nauseating sensation by occupying it and looking at their bearings.

It looked to him like they were in the middle of a trash bin. But no, they were leaning on the broken wall of a mostly desolate and destroyed country house. Behind them stood an enormous gate and high fence.

"Bloody hell," he grunted. "Where are we?"

#

Just as in a bad dream, Draco suddenly lifted his eyes to Hermione's. she saw his irises harden and slowly, very slowly, he rose. Next to her, Pansy burst into gales of irritating laughter, twirling her long black hair around her wand with a gleam in her eye. Finally, Draco stood towering over Hermione and drew his wand again, animosity present in his otherwise placid grey orbs.

Every last hair on Hermione's skin crawled on end; behind her, Fleur was letting out a litany of French prayers that she hadn't the mind to translate for herself.

"So now you've found me," Draco was snarling, every word a deep bite around Hermione's gut. "What do you want?"

Hermione swallowed deeply as he advanced toward her. Pansy wouldn't cease her cackle. "I -" She swallowed dryly around her throat. "I'm only doing my job," she said for her defence just when Draco's wand came in cool contact with her neck.

His face came next, breathing raggedly. He whispered harshly: "Just give me one reason not to kill you right now."

Disgusted and terrified at once, Hermione pulled her head away. "The Aurors will have your head for it," she whispered with a troubled lilt. "What's your motive?"

His eyes became clear, hard glass and mordant ice. "You killed my mother."

"What?" Hermione cried shrilly, revolted. "You killed your own mother because she Revealed you." What kind of worthy son would do this?

Her captor smiled one of those smiles she'd seen so often in her school days. "That is just the beauty of it: who will know if there is no living witness?" He glanced up at Fleur and burst out laughing evilly, pointing his wand at the old woman she had become for their purpose. "Oh, and who did the mudblood bring? Her old _muggle _grandmother? Really, Granger, you make my life so much easier…"

He hadn't the chance to utter his curse: Fleur whipped out her wand and Petrified him. Pansy shrieked and ran to Draco's crumpled form on the floor, then threw a beastly glare over her shoulder. Hermione wasn't sure how it got to her hands, but her wand flew into it somehow. Her fingers were trembling terribly.

The inevitable then happened: in Pansy's rage, Fleur hadn't noticed her wand slashing the air. She wasn't fast enough, and the curse her adversary threw at her couldn't be repelled; it immediately took effect. Fleur doubled over in pain, a wide gash on her midsection, gushing and dribbling with blood and her own entrails. Hermione helplessly saw her skin shift back to its original polished and porcelain-like white, then to a sickly transparent dullness. She heard her agonising cries of pain mix with the gore that she was coughing out with incredible force.

Pansy advanced toward Hermione as she stood in frightened daze, incapable of moving though she rather willed herself to with all her might; the sight she was witnessing was just too close to home and, oh Gods, she really wished she could run over to the beautiful woman who was suffering a slow death right in front of her. A stench of rotting and burning flesh reached her nostrils, nauseating. Pansy laughed again, something Hermione rather craved to force back into her throat for good.

"She's rotting from inside," Pansy informed Hermione, who made no reply for she already knew. Besides, Pansy was taunting her. "Clever, don't you think?" the young woman of a once treacherous beauty snarled, swaying her hips as she reached Hermione in short strides. "Draco taught me the spell. It comes from the _Libro de la Magia Negra_… but you already knew that… No? Oh, pity." She stroked Hermione's jaw, a harsh finger tracing the outline of an old scar.

"The Spanish were clever wizards. Created some of the most brilliant black magic spells when they were fighting the Arabs." She smirked, gazing Hermione down as she licked her lips. "Or maybe you knew _that_… Right little impostor you are… Bitch."

Hermione felt her fingers itching for a wand. She wanted to hex the other woman so much, but alas her wand was still irreparably shattered.

Pansy's eyes gleamed as she twirled her wand between her long fingers. "So we meet again, after all these years," she started in a sultry voice that reminded Hermione alarmingly of the last time they'd been alone, long ago. "I was wondering when we'd be able to pick up where we left off. Pity your lapdog showed up when we were about to have fun. You didn't change a bit - Did you miss me?"

Hermione shivered and recoiled from her snaking fingers, edging as far away as she could. _Harry… Ron… someone… please… help!_ she thought frantically, though she knew it was no use at all anymore.

Pansy cocked her eyebrow, jeering a bit and looking everything like a hungry wolf. "Now, now, now… No need to run away… I always fancied you the one who asked for more in the end," she said, sitting down leisurely on the chair Narcissa had been sitting on and thrusting out her chest, giving Hermione a full view of Pansy's creamy breasts which were almost completely pushed out of her tight bodice.

There was a shout and a crash and Hermione whipped her head round to see Harry scrambling to get to Hermione, a small robe-clad wizard hot on his heels. He collected Hermione into his arms and immediately let out a huge breath of relief while embracing her tightly. "Oh Gods, Hermione, are you okay? She was - I was - don't ever run away like that again."

Harry was nuzzling her hair, as if making sure he was really holding her. Finally he pulled back, tears in both their eyes, and she felt like she was about to crumble to the floor. "I'm so sorry," she repeated to him, a litany she didn't tire of saying over and over again, as long as it could somehow help make everything better.

He cupped her cheeks, his anxiety visible even as his hands shook on their trail to her face. "Are you okay? I mean -" He interrupted himself, and his eyes took in the bodies on the floor and the state of the room they were standing in. "What _happened_ in here? Are they dead?" he asked genuinely astonished.

Hermione snorted back her tears and regarded the picture: Pansy, Draco, his mother and Fleur whose glamour had faded away completely. Wiping her tears, she pointed first to Fleur, her index finger shaking. "She's… she's rotting. From inside," she choked on the words. "I think she went into shock now. Let me -" She stumbled to the floor, sobbing as she took in the sight of Fleur slowly putrefying, a sheer sheen of sweat all over her pretty face and neck. She took in the woman's vitals, sobbing all over again. _It's my fault if she dies. It's my fault,_ she thought frantically before Harry grabbed her by the waist and pulled her away.

Harry's face was piteous as he pulled her up to her feet. "I'll take her to St-Mungo's."

Hermione nodded, then her tears redoubled as he prepared himself to Disapparate. Fear dawned on her. "But I don't have a wand!" Harry froze and faced her again. "It's broken. I can't stay here; they'll both wake up soon."

There was dead silence during which Fleur, still unconscious, turned on her side and vomited, adding to the fetor yet.

But they both turned violently when they heard a female voice shout uncertainly to someone ways behind her in a slightly broken English: "Come 'ere, come 'ere!" Harry drew his wand to her.

And then a bright, fiery head popped into the drawing room behind her and when he saw Harry and Hermione, he broke out into a grin and strode out over to them in long strides that soon reached them. He embraced them both fast. "By all bloody gods out there… the map - and Hermione didn't show up anymore - and Harry's dot was flashing - I thought I'd gone barmy."

But Hermione wasn't smiling. She looked at Fleur as she started shivering to a cold only she seemed to be under, then nodded at Harry, who knelt and Disapparated with Fleur.

It was a while till someone spoke.

"What happened to her?" Ron asked quietly, prodding for safety. Then he frowned. "And where did she come from anyway?"

Hermione sighed wearily. "Got hit by a Penitus Morior1 Curse, thanks to Pansy right here, who's out cold thanks to Harry, who burst in on time thanks to Merlin knows what. She was going to help me with the Evanidus case."

"Just like that?" Ron asked as though utterly unconvinced. "Drats."

Hermione smiled. "Yeah." Then she grinned and hugged him. "How are you?" She glanced to the woman standing behind him. "Who's that?"

Nathalie stepped out of the shadows and extended her hand to introduce herself. "I am Nathalie Sansoucis. I'm an anthropologist, I work at the Prison de Bastille for the moment." She smiled sidelong at Ron. "Ron 'as told me all about you."

Hermione laughed. "Hopefully none of the dirty bantering bits." She regarded the three remaining bodies on the floor, then looked up soberly at Ron. "Mrs. Malfoy is dead…"

It was entertaining and rather fascinating to see Ron's expression switch to his Auror mode, deeply concentrated. "The ultimate Unforgivable?" he asked academically.

"Yes. Junior here killed her when she Revealed them." She turned to Draco's oddly positioned body. "Draco was hit with Fleur's Stunner," she continued, relating the events, then turned to the two remaining bodies. "Fleur was hit with Pansy's Penitus Morior. Pansy was about to curse me silly too but Harry barged in, and there you go."

Ron Petrified Draco again when he stirred. "What were you doing here anyway?" he continued as if they were quietly sipping tea.

Hermione frowned. "Fleur told me she had come here once to query Draco about some things she had found at the old Bastille Prison."

Nathalie piped up: "À la Bastille!", she exclaimed excitedly, then winced when they did not respond.

Weasley and Granger both ignored her and resumed their conversation. "I'm sure it's a very long and not so interesting story, so please skip that part and you'd be lovely," Ron said with a little leer.

Hermione nodded and racked her brain for the important points. "Okay, so the thing is we knew Pansy at least had… er, she's waking up." _The spells around the Manor must inhibit the non-inhabitants' magic_, she thought suddenly as Ron re-Petrified Parkinson. "We know that she at least had some commercial link with the disease's re-formation. I'm not sure about Draco, though, so we came here to make Narcissa Reveal the Secret - because I am almost one hundred percent positive that Draco and Pansy were each other's Secret-Keepers… but Draco could never live in complete secrecy, so I was fairly sure that Narcissa was there when they performed the spells."

Ron nodded grimly. This all made complete sense. "Okay," he said decisively. "We'll take them both to Headquarters."

"At the French Ministry?" Hermione asked incredulously. _He's barmy_. The prospect of locking them up only to have them escape easily was impossible to digest. "Don't you think that's a bit… er, stupid, considering their history?"

Ron sighed, kneeling to drag Pansy next to Draco. "Yeah, I sure understand what you mean. Only… we can't take them to England. _We_ don't have anything to hold them in for."

The young witch grimaced to herself and nodded grimly. "I'll stay here, then." She slipped her hands neatly round his waist and gently pressed her cheek to his chest. "Take care, Ron."

Ron smiled gratefully and then Disapparated with Draco and Pansy each under one armpit.

The bushy haired woman turned to her grinning muggle companion and wondered just what was so bloody funny.

1 Rotting Interior Curse


End file.
